OVER THERE 

WITH THE 

AUSTRALIANS 




Capt.RHu^ IQiyvett 




Class _^l4AQ 

Book . 

Gop>Tiglit]^^. 



COEfillGHT DEPOSm 



"OVER THERE" 
WITH THE AUSTRALIANS 




From a photograph by Mo£eU, Chicago 



^'OVER THERE" 

WITH THE AUSTRALIANS 



BY 



CAPTAIN R. HUGH KNYVETT 

ANZAC SCOUT 
Intelligencb Officer, Fifteenth Australiah Infantry 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1918 



A 



O 



X^* 



COPTRIGHT, 1918, BT 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
Published April, 1918 



m I8i9i8 




/ -SO 

©CI.A494869 



BILL-JIM'S CHRISTMAS 

(BUl-Jim is Australia's name for her soldier) 

Here where I sit, mticked-up with Flanders mud, 

Wrapped-round with clothes to keep the Winter outj 

Ate-up wi' pests a bloke donH care to name 

To ears polite, 

I'm glad I'm here all right ; 

A ma7i must fight for freedom and his blood 

Against this German rout 

An' do his bit. 

An' not go growlin' while he's doin' it: 

The cove as can't statid cowardice or shame 

Must play the game. 

Here's Christmas, though, with cold sleet swirlin' down 

God ! gimme Christmas day in Sydney town ! 

I long to see the flowers in Martin Place, 

To meet the girl I write to face to face, 

To hold her close and teach 

What in this Hell I'm learning — that a man 

Is only half a man without his girl, 

That sure as grass is green and God's above 

A chap's real liappiness. 

If he's no churl. 

Is home and folks and girl. 

And all the comforts that come in with love I 

There is a thrill in war, as all must own. 
The tramplin' onward rush, 
The shriek o' shrapnel and the followin' hush, 
The bosker crunch o' bayonet on bone. 
The warmth of the dim dug-out at the end, 

V 



The talkin' over things, as friend to friend, 
A fid through it all the blessed certainty 
As this war^s working out for you an' me 
As we would have it work. 

Fritz maybe, and the Turk 

Feel that way, too. 

The same as me an* you. 

And dream o' victory at last, although 

The silly cows don't know. 

Because they ainH been barn and bred clean-free, 

Like you and me. 

But this is Christmas, and I'm feeling blus, 

An' lonely, too. 

I want to see one little girl's sly pout 

(There's lots of other coves as feels like this) 

That holds you of and still invites a kiss. 

I want to get out from this smash and wreck 

Just for to-day. 

And feel a pair of arms slip round me neck 

In that one girl's own way. 

I want to hear the splendid roar and shout 

O' breakers comin' in on Bondi Beach, 

While she, with her old scrappy costume on, 

Walks by my side, an' looks into my face. 

An' makes creation one big pleasure-plctce 

Where golden sand basks in that golden weather — 

Yes! her an' me together ! 

I do me bit. 

An' make no fuss of it ; 

But for to-day I sofnehow want to be 

At home, just her an' me. 

(From the Sydney " Sunday Times ") 



VI 



CONTENTS 

An Introduction Mainly About Scouts . . . . - 3 

PART I 
"THE CALL TO ARMS" 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Call Reaches Some Far-Out Australians 15 

IL An All-British Ship 21 

III. Human Snowballs 28 

IV. Training-Camp Life 37 

V. Concentrated for Embarkation .... 48 

VI. Many Weeks at Sea 62 

PART II 

EGYPT 

VII. The Land of Sand and Sweat 77 

VIII. Heliopolis 80 

IX. The Desert 85 

X. Picketing in Cairo . 90 

XI. "Nipper" loi 

vii 



viii CONTENTS 

PART III 
GALLIPOLI 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XII. The Adventure of Youth iii 

XIII. The Landing That Could Not Succeed- 

But Did ii6 

XIV. Holding On and Nibbling 124 

XV. The Evacuation 131 

XVI. " Ships That Pass .. ." 138 

PART IV 
THE WESTERN FRONT 

XVII. Ferry Post and the Suez Canal Defenses . 151 

XVIII. First Days in France 161 

XIX. The Battle of Fleurbaix 171 

XX. Days and Nights of Strafe 186 

XXI. The Village of Sleep 201 

XXII. TheSomme 213 

XXIII. The Army's Pair of Eyes 226 

XXIV. Nights in No Man's Land . . . . .236 
XXV. Spy-Hunting 250 

XXVI. Bapaumeand^'aBUghty" 259 



CONTENTS ix 

PART V 
HOSPITAL LIFE 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XXVII. In France 271 

XXVIIL In London 281 

XXIX. The Hospital-ship 289 

XXX. In Australia 299 

XXXI. Using an Irishman's Nerve 305 

PART VI 
MEDITATIONS IN THE TRENCHES 

XXXIL The Right Infantry Weapons . . . . 311 

XXXm. The Forcing-House of Bestiality ... 315 

XXXIV. The Psychology of Fear 320 

XXXV. The Splendor of the Present Opportunity . 325 

XXXVI. Not a Fight for " Race '* but for " Right " 330 

XXXVIL " Keeping Faith with the Dead " ... 334 

Poem, "But a Short Time to Live" . . 339 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

R. Hugh Knyvett Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

From inland towns . . . men without the means of ^ 
paying their transportation . . . started out to 
walk the three or four hundred miles ... to the 

nearest camp 30 '' 

"On Show" Before Leaving Home 56 

Anzac Cove, Gallipoli 118 

An Austrahan Camel Corps i5<5 

"Us— Going In" 172 

My Own Comrades Waiting for Buses 210 

Ammunition Going Through a Somme City . . . . 218 



"OVER THERE" 
WITH THE AUSTRALIANS 



AN INTRODUCTION MAINLY 
ABOUT SCOUTS 

I AM a scout; nature, inclination, and fate put 
me into that branch of army service. In trying 
to tell Australia's story I have of necessity en- 
larged on the work of the scouts, not because 
theirs is more important than other branches of the 
service, nor they braver than their comrades of 
other units. Nor do I want it to be thought that 
we undergo greater danger than machine-gunners, 
grenadiers, light trench -mortar men, or other 
speciaHsts. But, frankly, I don't know much 
about any other man's job but my own, and less 
than I ought to about that. To introduce you 
to the spirit, action, and ideals of the Australian 
army I have to intrude my own personality, and 
if in the following pages *'what I did" comes out 
rather strongly, please remember I am but *'one 
of the boys," and have done not nearly as good 
work as ten thousand more. 

I rejoice though that I was a scout, and would 
not exchange my experiences with any, not even 
with an adventurer from the pages of B. O. P.* 
Romance bathes the very name, the finger-tips 

♦ Boys Own Paper. 
3 



4 "OVER THERE" 

tingle as they write it, and there was not infre- 
quently enough interesting work to make one 
even forget to be afraid. Very happy were those 
days when I lived just across the road from 
Fritz, for we held dominion over No Man's Land, 
and I was given complete freedom in planning 
and executing my tiny stunts. The general said: 
*'It is not much use training specialists if you 
interfere with them," so as long as we did our 
job we were given a free hand. 

The deepest lines are graven on my memory 
from those days, not by the thrilling experiences 
— "th' hairbreadth 'scapes" — but by the fellow- 
ship of the men I knew. An American general 
said to me recently that scouts were born, not 
made. It may be so, but it is surprising what 
opposite types of men became our best scouts. 
There were two without equal: one, city-bred, a 
college graduate; the other a "bushie," writing 
his name with difficulty. 

Ray Wilson was a nervous, highly strung sort 
of fellow, almost a girl in his sensitiveness. In 
fact, at the first there were several who called 
him Rachel, but they soon dropped it, for he was 
a lovable chap, and disarmed his enemies with his 
good nature. He had taken his arts course, but 
was studying music when he enlisted, and he 
must have been the true artist, for though the 
boys were prejudiced against the mandolin as 
being a sissy instrument, when he played they 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 5 

would sit around in silence for hours. What 
makes real friendship between men ? You may- 
know and Hke and respect a fellow for years, and 
that is as far as it goes, when, suddenly, one day 
something happens — a curtain is pulled aside and 
you go '*ben"* with him for a second — after- 
ward you are * 'friends," before you were merely 
friendly acquaintances. 

Ray and I became friends in this wise. We 
were out together scouting preparatory to a raid, 
and were seeking a supposed new ''listening post'* 
of the enemy. There had been a very heavy 
bombardment of the German trenches all day, 
and it was only held up for three-quarters of an 
hour to let us do our job. The new-stale earth 
turned up by the shells extended fifty yards in 
No Man's Land. (Only earth that has been 
blown on by the wind is fresh "over there." 
Don't, if you have a weak stomach, ever turn up 
any earth; though there may not be rotting flesh, 
other gases are imprisoned in the soil.) This 
night the wind was strong, and the smell of warm 
blood mingled with the phosphorous odor of high 
explosive, and there was that other sweet-sticky- 
sickly smell that is the strongest scent of a recent 
battle-field. It was a vile, unwholesome job, and 
we were glad that our time was limited to three- 

*"Ben" was the living-room of a Scotch cottage where only 
intimate friends were admitted. Ian Maclaren says of a very good 
man: " He was far ben wi God." 



6 "OVER THERE" 

quarters of an hour, when our artillery would re- 
open fire. I got a fearful start on looking at my 
companion's face in the light of a white star- 
shell; it might have belonged to one of the corpses 
lying near, with the lips drawn back, the eyes 
fixed, and the complexion ghastly. He replied to 
my signal that he was all right, but a nasty sus- 
picion crept into my mind — ^his teeth had chat- 
tered so much as to make him imable to answer 
a question of mine just before we left the trench, 
but one took no notice of a thing like that, for 
stage fright was common enough to all of us be- 
fore a job actually started. But ''could he be 
depended on?" was the fear that was now haunt- 
ing me. 

Presently some Germans came out of their 
trench. We counted eight of them as they 
crawled down inside their broken wire. We cau- 
tiously followed them, expecting that they were 
going out to the suspected "listening post,*' but 
they went about fifty yards, and then lay down 
just in front of their own parapet. After about 
twenty minutes they returned the way they came, 
and I have no doubt reported that they had 
been over to our wire and there were no Aus- 
tralian patrols out. 

This had taken up most of our time, and I 
showed Wilson that we had only ten minutes 
left, and that we had better get back so as not 
to cut it too fine. I was rather siu-prised when 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 7 

he objected, spelling out in Morse on my hand 
that we had come out to find the ''listening post," 
and we had not searched up to the right. The 
Germans were evidently getting suspicious of the 
silence, and to our consternation suddenly put 
down a heavy barrage in No Man's Land, not 
more than thirty yards behind us. There was 
no getting through it, and we grabbed each other's 
hand, and only the pressure was needed to signal 
the one word ''trapped." When the shelling 
commenced we had instinctively made for a drain 
about four feet deep that ran across No Man's 
Land, and "sat up" in about six inches of water. 
Had we remained on top the light from the shells 
would have revealed us only too plainly, being 
behind us. I was afraid to look at my wrist- 
watch, and when I did pluck up sufficient courage 
to do so, I might have saved myself the trouble, 
as the opening shell from our batteries at the same 
moment proclaimed that the time was up. As 
we huddled down, sitting in the icy water, we 
realized that the objective of our own gims was 
less than ten yards from us, and we could only 
hope and pray that no more wire-cutting was 
going to be done that night. Once, when we 
were covered with the returning d6bris, we in- 
stinctively threw our arms round each other. 
When we shook ourselves free, what was my 
amazement to find my companion shaking with 
— Slaughter. There was now no need for silence, 



8 "OVER THERE" 

a shout could hardly be heard a few yards away. 
He called to me: "Did you ever do the Blondin 
act before, because we are walking a razor-edge 
right now. We're between the devil and the 
*deep sea/ anyway, and I think myself the 'deep 
sea' will get us." As I looked at him something 
happened, and I felt light-hearted as though 
miles from danger — all fear of death was taken 
away. What did it matter if we were killed? — it 
was a strange sense of security in a rather tight 
place. 

After a short while our bombardment ceased. 
We learned afterward that word was sent back to 
the artillery that we were still out. As the boche 
fire also stopped soon afterward, we were able to 
scurry back and surprise our friends with our 
safe appearance. 

After this experience Ray Wilson and I were 
closer than brothers — than twin brothers. It 
was only a common danger shared, such an or- 
dinary thing in trench life, but there was some- 
thing that was not on the surface, and though I 
was his officer, otir friendship knew no barrier. 
I went mad for a while when his body was found 
— mutilated — after he had been missing three 
days. Don't talk of **not hating" to a man 
whose friend has been foully murdered! What 
if he had been yours ? 

A very different man was Dan Macarthy, a 
typical outbacker. All the schooling he ever 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 9 

got was from an itinerant teacher who would 
stay for a week at the house, correct and set 
tasks, returning three months later for another 
week. This system was adopted by the govern- 
ment for the sparsely settled districts not able 
to support a teacher, as a means of assisting the 
parents in teaching their children themselves. 
But Dan's parents could neither read nor write, 
and what healthy youngster, with "all out-of- 
doors" around him, would study by himself. 
Dan read with difficulty and wrote with greater, 
but I have met few better-educated men. His 
eyesight was marvellous, and I don't think that 
he ever forgot an incident, however slight. After 
a route march oiu* scouts have to write down 
everything they saw, not omitting the very small- 
est detail. For example, if we pass through a 
village they have to give an estimate by examin- 
ing the stores, how many troops it could support, 
and so on. No other list was ever as large as 
Dan's. He saw and remembered everything. 
He had received his training as a child looking 
for horses in a paddock so large that if you did 
not know where to look you might search for a 
week. Out there in the coimtry of the black- 
tracker powers of observation are abnonnally 
developed — lives depend on it, as when in a 
drought the watercoto-ses dry up, and only the 
signs written on the ground indicate to him who 
can read them where the life-saving fluid may be 



lO "OVER THERE 



>> 



found. Dan was a wonderful scout, a true and 
loyal friend, but he had absolutely no "sense of 
ownership." He thought that whatever another 
man possessed he had a right to; but, on the other 
hand, any one else had an equal right to appro- 
priate anything of his (Dan's). He never put 
forward any theory about it, but would just help 
himself to anything he wanted, not troubling to 
hide it, and he never made any fuss if some one 
picked up something of his that was not in use. 
I never saw such a practical example of com- 
munism. At first, there were a ntimber of rows 
about it, but after a while if any of the boys 
missed anything they would go and hunt through 
Dan's kit for it. The only time he made a fuss 
at losing anything was when one of his mates for 
a lark took his rosary. He soon discovered, by 
shrewd questioning, who it was, and there was 
a fight that landed them both in the guard-tent. 
The boys forbore to tease him about his incon- 
sistency when he said: "It was mother's. She 
brought it from Ireland.'* Dan was still scouting 
when I was sent out well-ptmctured, and I doubt 
if there are any who have accounted for more of 
the Potsdam swine single-handed. His score was 
known to be over a himdred when I left. If I 
can get back again, may I have Dan in my squad! 
These two are but types of the boys I lived 
with so long, and got to love so well. Few of 
my early comrades are left on the earth; but we 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 1 1 

are not separated even from those who have 
*'gone west," and the war has given to me, in 
time and eternity, many real friends. 

The following pages are not a history of the 
Australians. I have no means of collecting and 
checking data, but they are an attempt to show 
the true nature of the AustraHan soldier, and sent 
out with the hope that they will remind some, 
in this great American democracy, of the contri- 
bution made by the freemen who live across the 
ocean of peace from you to *'make the world 
safe for democracy.'* 

I also have the hope that the stories of per- 
sonal experience will make real to you some of 
the men whose bodies have been for three years 
part of that human rampart that has kept your 
homes from desolation, and your daughters from 
violation, and that you will speed in sending them 
succor as though the barrier had broken and the 
bestial Hun were even now, with lust dominant, 
smashing at your own door. 



PART I 
**THE CALL TO ARMS'' 



CHAPTER I 

THE CALL REACHES SOME FAR-OUT 
AUSTRALIANS 

Just where the white man's continent pushes 
the tip of its horn among the eastern lands there 
is a black man's land half as large as Mexico that 
is administered by the government of Austraha. 
New Guinea has all the romance and lure of un- 
explored regions. It is a country of nature's 
wonders, a treasure-chest with the Hd yet to be 
raised by some intrepid discoverer. There are 
tree-climbing fish, and pygmy men, mountains 
higher and rivers greater than any yet discovered. 
To the north of AustraHa's slice of this wonder- 
land the Kaiser was squeezing a hunk of the same 
island in his mailed fist. 

The contrast between the administration of 
these two portions of the same land forms the 
best answer to the question: "What shall be done 
with Germany's colonies?'* 

In German New Guinea there have always 
been more soldiers than civilians, cannibaHsm is 
rife, and life and property are insecure outside 
the immediate Hmits of the barracks. In British 
New Guinea or Papua there has never been a 

15 



i6 "OVER THERE" 

single soldier and cannibalism is abolished. A 
white woman, Beatrice Grimshaw, travelled 
through the greater part of it improtected and 
immolested. 

The following story told of Sir William Mac- 
gregor, the first administrator, shows the way of 
Britishers in governing native races. He one day 
marched into a village where five hundred war- 
riors were assembled for a head-himting expedi- 
tion. Sir William, then Doctor Macgregor, had 
with him two white men and twelve native police. 
He strode into the centre of these blood-thirsting 
savages, grasped the chief by the scruff of the 
neck, kicked him around the circle of his war- 
riors, demanded an immediate apology and the 
payment of a fine for the transgression of the 
Great White Mother's orders for peace — the bluff 
worked, as it always does. 

Australia has now added the late German 
colony Hermanlohe, or German New Guinea, to 
the southern portion, making an Australian crown 
colony of about two himdred and fifty thousand 
square miles. This was taken by a force of 
Australian troops conveyed in Australian ships. 
I was not fortunate enough to be a member of the 
expedition, but the ultimatum issued to the Ger- 
man commandant resulted in the Australian flag 
flying over the governor's residence at Rabaul 
within a few hours of the appearance of the 
Australian ships. 



SOME FAR-OUT AUSTRALIANS 17 

It was soon evident to the Australians that 
this was intended to be a German naval station 
and military post of great importance. Enough 
mimition, and accommodation for troops were 
there to show that it was to be the jumping-off 
place for an attack on Australia. Such arma- 
ment could never have been meant merely to 
impel Kultur on the poor, harmless blacks with 
their blowpipes and bows and arrows. 

Every Australian is determined that these of 
nature's children shall not come again within 
reach of German brutality, but that they shall 
know fair play and good government such as the 
British" race everywhere gives to the "nigger," 
having a sense of responsibility toward him that 
the men of this breed cannot escape. It would 
almost seem that the Almighty has laid the black 
man's burden on the shoulders of the Briton, as 
he was the first to abolish slavery, and no other 
people govern colored peoples for the sole benefit 
of the governed. 

In every British colony other nations can trade 
on equal terms, and millions of pounds sterling 
are squeezed from the British public every year to 
provide for the well-being of native peoples, wor- 
shipping strange deities and jabbering a gibberish 
that would sound to an American like a gramo- 
phone-shop gone crazy ! While other nations 
make their colonies pay for the protection they 
give them, the British people pay very heavily for 



i8 "OVER THERE" 

the privilege (?) of sheltering and civilizing these 
far-flung, strange peoples. No true friend of 
the black man can consider the possibility of 
handing him back to the cruelty of Teutonic 
''forced Kultur." 

The most heartless of Japanese gardeners could 
never twist and torture a plant into freak beauty 
more surely than the German system of govern- 
ment would compress the governed into a sham 
civilization. Australia would fight again sooner 
than that a German establishment should offend 
our sense of justice and menace our peace near 
our northern shores. 

The western half of New Guinea (and the least 
known) belongs to Holland, and it was in the 
waters of this coast that the Australians whose 
story I am telling were living and working 
when the tocsin of war soimded. These sons of 
empire were registered under a Dutch name with 
their charter to work there from the Dutch Gov- 
ernment, yet when they heard that men were 
needed for the Australian army, they dropped 
everything and hastened south to enlist. The 
long-obeyed calls of large profits and novel ex- 
periences, the lure of an adventurous life, were 
drowned by the bugle notes of the Australian 
"call to arms." 

These were young men who had left the shores 
of their native cotmtry, venturing farther out 
a-sea, ever seeking pearls of great price. They 



SOME FAR-OUT AUSTRALIANS 19 

had once been engaged in pearl-fishing from the 
northernmost point of Australia — Thursday 
Island — that eastern and cosmopolitan village 
squatting on the soil of a continent sacred to the 
white races. 

When the handful of white people holding this 
newest continent first flaunted their banner of 
**No Trespassers'* in the face of the multicolored 
millions of Asia, they declared their willingness to 
sweat and toil even imder tropic skies, and de- 
velop their country without the aid of the cheap 
labor of the rice-eating, mat-sleeping, fast-breed- 
ing spawn of the man-burdened East. But this 
policy came well-nigh to being the death-blow to 
one little industry of the north, so far from the 
ken of the legislators in Sydney and Melbourne 
as to have almost escaped their recognizance. 

The largest pearling-groimd in the world is just 
to the north of this lovely Southland. It wotild 
seem as though the aesthetic oyster that lines its 
home with the tinting of heaven and has caught 
the ** tears of angels," petrifying them as perma- 
nent souvenirs, loves to make its home as near to 
this earthly paradise as the ocean will permit. 

When the law decreed that only white labor 
must be employed on the fleets a number of the 
pearlers went north and became Dutch citizens, 
for from ports in the Dutch Indies they could 
work Australian waters up to the three-mile limit. 

But as soon as it was known that Australia 



20 "OVER THERE" 

needed meriy that we were at war, then politics 
and profits could go hang: at heart they were all 
Australians and would not be behind any in of- 
fering their Hves. It took but a few days to pay 
off the crews, send the Jap divers where they be- 
longed, beach the schooners, and take the fastest 
steamer back HOME — then enlist, and away, 
with front seats for the biggest show on earth. 



CHAPTER II 
AN ALL-BRITISH SHIP 

We flew the Dutch flag, we were registered in 
a Dutch port, but every timber in that British- 
built ship creaked out a protest, and there paced 
the quarter-deck five registered Dutchmen who 
could not croak *'Gott-verdammter !'* if their 
lives depended on it, and who guzzled "rice 
taffie" in a very un-Dutch manner. Generally 
they forgot that they had sold their birthright. 
Ever their eyes turned southward, which was 
homeward, and only the mention of the Labor 
party brought to their minds the reason for leav- 
ing their native land. Each visit to port rubbed 
in the fact that they were now Dutchmen, as there 
were always blue papers to be signed and fresh 
taxes to be paid. 

There was George Hym, who was a member of 
every learned society in England. The only 
letter of the alphabet he did not have after his 
name was "I," and that was because he did not 
happen to have been bom in Indiana. Had that 
accident happened to him, even the Indiana So- 
ciety would have given him a place at the speak- 
er's table. He was the skipper of our fleet, had 
an extra master's certificate entitling him to 



22 "OVER THERE" 

command even the Mauretania. Many yams 
were invented to explain his being with us. It 
was as if ''John D." should be found peddling 
hair-oil. 

Some said he had murdered his grandmother- 
in-law and dare not pass the time of day with 
Mr. Murphy in blue. Others claimed that the 
crime was far greater — the murder of a stately 
ship — and that the marine underwriters would 
have paid handsomely for the knowledge of his 
whereabouts. At any rate, he never left the 
ship while in port, and he seemed to have no 
relatives. 

There were times when the black cloud was 
upon him and our voices were hushed to whis- 
pers lest the vibration should cause it to break 
in fiuy on our own heads — then he would flog 
the crew with a wire hawser, and his language 
would cause the paint to blister on the deck. 
At other times the memory of his ''mother** 
would steal over his spirit and in a sweet tenor 
he would croon the old-time hymns and the old 
ship would creak its loving accompaniment, 
and the imopened shell-fish would waft the in- 
cense heavenward. 

We believed most of his ill temper was due to 
the foreign flag hanging at our stem that the 
Sydney-built ship was ever trying to hide be- 
neath a wave. He had sailed every sea, with 
no other flag above him than the Union Jack, 



AN ALL-BRITISH SHIP 23 

and felt maybe that even his misdeeds deserved 
not the covering of less bright colors. It was like 
a ringmaster fallen on hard times having to act 
the part of "clown." But needs must where ne- 
cessity drives, and as his own country would have 
none of him, he was tolerant of the flag that hid 
him from the ''sleuths" of British law. 

BUT WAR CAME, and the chance to redeem 
himself. What washes so clean as blood — and 
many a stained escutcheon has in these times 
been cleansed and renewed — bathed in the hot 
blood poured out freely by the ''sons of the line." 
Whether the fleet was laid up or not, George was 
going ! He might be over age, but no one could 
say what age he really was, and he was tougher 
than most men half his age. He left Queens- 
land for Egypt with the Remount Unit in 19 15, 
and is to-day in Jerusalem with the British forces. 
Maybe he is treading the Via Dolorosa gazing at 
a place called Calvary, hoping that One will re- 
member that he, too, had offered his life a ran- 
som for past sins, which were many. 

"For ours shall be Jerusalem, the golden city blest, 
The happy home of which we've sung, in every land 

and every tongue, 
When there the pure white cross is hung, 
Great spirits shall have rest."* 

Prince Dressup was the dandy of the ship, a 
"swell guy" even at sea. His singlets were open- 

* Mrs. A. H. Spicer, Chicago. 



24 "OVER THERE" 

work, his moleskins were tailor-made, and his 
toe-nails were pedicured. The others wore only- 
singlets and ''pants," but had the regulation cos- 
tume been as in the Garden of Eden, his fig-leaf 
would have been the greenest and freshest there ! 

At one time he had been the best-dressed man in 
Sydney, giving the glad and glassy optic to every 
flapper whose clocked silk stockings caught his 
fancy. Some girl must have jilted him, and this 
was his revenge on the fluffy things, the choice of 
a life where none of them could feast their eyes on 
his immaculate masculine eligibility. Or, maybe, 
he was really in love, and some true woman had 
told him only to return to her when he had proved 
himself a man. If so, he had chosen the best 
forcing-school for real manhood that existed prior 
to the war. And there was real stuff in Prince 
Dressup; for, although there was distinction and 
style even in the way he opened shell-fish, he took 
his share of the dirty work, and when the time 
came he would not let another man take his place 
in the ranks of the fighters for Australia's free- 
dom. He said, when we knew of the war, ''that 
it would be rather good fim," and when he died 
on Gallipoli, the bullet that passed through his 
lungs had first of all come through the body of a 
comrade on his back. 

Chtim Shrimp's size was the joke of the ship — 
he must have weighed three hundred pounds. 
He could only pass through a door sideways, and 



AN ALL-BRITISH SHIP 25 

the **Bmghis " (natives of New Guinea), when they 
saw him, blamed him for a recent tidal wave, 
saying that he had fallen overboard. He was the 
most active man I have ever known, and on rough 
days would board the schooner by catching the 
dinghee boom with one hand as it dipped toward 
the launch, and swing himself hand over hand in- 
board. I never expected the schooner to com- 
plete the opposite roll until Chtim was * 'play- 
ing plum" in the centre. 

Chum's parentage was romantic — ^his father a 
government official and his mother an island 
princess — he himself being one of the whitest 
men I have ever been privileged to call friend. 
We never thought he would get into the army, 
for though he was as strong as any two of us, 
he would require the cloth of three men's suits 
for his uniform, and he would always have to 
be the blank file in a column of fours, as four 
of his size would spread across the street, and to 
"cover off" the four behind them would just 
march in the rear of their spinal columns, having 
a driveway between each of them. 

He was determined to enlist, and a wise gov- 
ernment solved the problem by making him quar- 
termaster, thus insuring in the only way possible 
that Chum would have a sufficient supply of 
''grub." This job was also right in his hands, 
because he possessed considerable business in- 
stinct; and you remember Lord Kitchener said 



26 "OVER THERE" 

of the quartermaster that he was the only man 
in the army whose salary he did not know ! 

The fifth Britisher of our crew will growl him- 
self into your favor, being a well-bred British 
bulldog, looking down with pity on the tykes of 
mixed blood. Even before the war he showed 
his anti-German feelings by his treatment of a 
pet pig that we had on the schooner. 

As I look back on it, our evening sport was a 
prophecy of what is to-day happening on the 
western front. *' Torres" would stand growling 
and snapping at the porker, which would squeal 
and try to get away, but his hoofs could not grip 
the slippery deck, and though his feet were going 
so fast as to be blurred he would not be making 
an inch of progress. The Germans have been 
squealing and wanting to get away from the 
British bulldog but they do not know how to 
retire without collapse. 

This pig had a habit of curling up among the 
anchor chains, and while we only used one anchor 
he escaped injury, but one rough day when both 
anchors were dropped simultaneously, piggy shot 
into the air with a broken back. The Germans 
have withstood the Allies so far, but now that 
America is with us, the back of the German re- 
sistance will soon be broken. 

Of course Torres enHsted! In the beginning 
he was with Chum, and there was danger of his 
growing fat of body and soft of soul in the quar- 



AN ALL-BRITISH SHIP 27 

termaster's store, but he was rescued in time, 
and after months of exciting researches into ca- 
nine history among the bones of the tombs of 
Egypt he earned renown at Armentieres, as his 
body was found in No Man's Land with his head 
in the cold hand of a comrade to whom he had 
attached himself, and I believe his spirit has 
joined the deathless army of the unburied dead 
that watch over our patrols and inspire our sen- 
tries with the realization that on an Australian 
front No Man's Land has shrunk and our pos- 
session reaches right up to the enemy barbed 
wire. 



CHAPTER III 
HUMAN SNOWBALLS 

'Way out back in the Never Never Land of 
Australia there Hves a patriotic breed of humans 
who know Httle of the comforts of civilized life, 
whose homes are bare, where coin is rarely seen, 
but who have as red blood and as clean minds 
as any race on earth. 

The little town of Muttaburra, for instance, 
has a population of two himdred, one-half of 
whom are eligible for military service. 

They live in galvanized-iron humpies with dirt 
floors, newspaper-covered walls, sacking stretched 
across poles for beds, kerosene-boxes for chairs, 
and a table made from saplings. The water for 
household uses is delivered to the door by modem 
Dianas driving a team of goats at twenty-five 
cents per kerosene-tin, which is not so dear when 
you know that it has to be brought from a ''billa- 
bong"* ten miles away. 

Most of the men in such towns work as *'rouse- 
abouts" (handy men) on the surrounding sheep 
and cattle stations. At shearing-time the "gaf- 
fers*' (grandfathers) and yoimg boys get employ- 

* Billabong — ^a water-hole in a dry river-course. 
28 



HUMAN SNOWBALLS 29 

ment as "pickers-up'* and ** rollers.*' Every 
shearer keeps three men at high speed attending 
to him. One picks up the fleece in such a man- 
ner as to spread it out on the table in one throw; 
another one pulls off the ends and rolls it so 
that the wool-classer can see at a glance the 
length of the wool and weight of the fleece; an- 
other, called the ** sweeper/' gathers into a basket 
the trimmings and odd pieces. These casual la- 
borers and rouseabouts are paid ten dollars a 
week, while the shearer works on piece work, 
receiving six dollars for each hundred sheep shorn, 
and it is a slow man who does not average one 
hundred and fifty per day. All the shearing is 
done by machine, and in Western Queensland 
good shearers are in constant employment for ten 
months of the year. The shearers have a sepa- 
rate imion from the rouseabouts, and there is a 
good deal of ill feeling between the two classes. 
When the shearers want a spell I have known them 
declare by a majority vote that the sheep were 
"wet," though there had not been any rain for 
months ! There is a law that says that shearers 
must not be asked to shear "wet" sheep, as it is 
supposed to give them a pectdiar disease. The 
rouseabouts do not mind these "slow-down" 
strikes, as they get paid anyway, but the shearers 
are very bitter when these have a dispute with the 
boss and strike, for it cuts down their earnings, 
probably just when they wanted to finish the shed 



30 "OVER THERE" 

so as to get a *' stand" at the commencement of 
shearing near by. 

When the war broke out the problem of the 
government was how to collect the volunteers 
from these outback towns for active service. It 
would cost from fifty to one hundred dollars 
per head in railway fare to bring them into 
camp. 

The outbacker, however, solved the problem 
without waiting for the government to make up 
its mind. They just made up their swags and 
"humped the bluey " * for the coast. That is how 
the remarkable phenomenon of the human snow- 
ball marches commenced. 

Simultaneously from inland towns in different 
parts of Australia men without the means of pay- 
ing their transportation to Sydney or Melbourne 
simply started out to walk the three or four him- 
dred miles from their homes to the nearest camp. 
In the beginning there would just be half a dozen 
or so, but as they reached the next township they 
would tell where they were bound, and more 
would join. Passing by boundary riders' and 
prospectors* huts, they would pick up here and 
there another red-blood who could not resist the 
chance of being in a real ding-dong fight. Many 
were grizzled and gray, but as hard as nails, and 
no one could prove that they were over the age 

* Humped the bluey — ^tramped across country with blue blanket 
(or swag). 



HUMAN SNOWBALLS 31 

for enlistment, for they themselves did not know 
how old they were ! 



"Said the squatter, 'Mike, you're crazy, they have soldier- 
men a-plenty ! 
You're as grizzled as a badger, and you're sixty year or so 1 ' 
'But I haven't missed a scrap,' says I, 'since I was one- 
and-twenty, 
And shall I miss the biggest ? You can bet your whiskers 
—No!!'"* 



Presently the telegraph-wires got busy, and the 
defense department in Melbourne rubbed its eyes 
and sat up. As usual, the country was bigger 
than its rulers, and more men were coming in 
than could be coped with. The whole coimtry 
was a catchment of patriotism — a huge river- 
basin — and these marching bands from the far- 
out country were the tributaries which fed the 
huge river of men which flowed from the State 
capitals to the concentration camps in Sydney 
and Melbourne. The leading newspapers soon 
were full of the story of these men from the bush 
who could not wait for the government to gather 
them in, and none should deny them the right to 
fight for their hberties. 

Strange men these, as they tramped into a bush 
township, feet tied up in sacking, old felt hats on 
their heads, moleskins and shirt, ''bluey,'* or blue 
blanket, and ** billy,** or quart canister, for boiling 

♦Robert W. Service. 



32 "OVER THERE" 

tea slung over their backs, all white from the 
dust of the road. 

Old Tom Coghlan was there. He had lived in 
a boiindary hut for twenty years, only seeing 
another human being once a month, when his 
rations were brought from the head station. 
His conversation for days, now that he was with 
companions, would be limited to two distinctive 
grunts, one meaning "yes," the other "no.'* But 
on the station he had been known to harangue for 
hours a jam- tin on a post, declaiming on the in- 
iquities of a capitalist government. Those who 
heard him as they hid behind a gum-tree declared 
his language then was that of a college man. 
Probably he was the scion of some noble house 
— there are many of them out there in the land 
where no one cares about your past. 

Here, too, was young Bill Squires, who had 
reached the age of twenty-one without having 
seen a parson, and asked a bush missionary who 
inquired if he knew Jesus Christ: "What kind of 
horse does he ride?" 

Not much of an army, this band. They would 
not have impressed a drill-sergeant. To many 
even in those towns they were just a nimiber of 
simdowners.* They would act the part, arriv- 
ing as the sun was setting and, throwing their 
swags on the veranda of the hotel, lining up to the 
bar, eyeing the loungers there to see who would 

* Sundowners — tramps who arrive at a ranch at sundown expect- 
ing to be put up for the night. 



HUMAN SNOWBALLS 33 

stand treat. Only the eye of God Almighty could 
see that beneath the dust and rags there were 
hearts beating with love for country, and spirits 
exulting in the opportunity offering in the under- 
taking of a man-size job. Perhaps a Kitchener 
would have seen that the slouch was but habit 
and the nonchalance merely a cloak for enthu- 
siasm, but even he would hardly have guessed 
that these were the men who would win on Gal- 
lipoli the praise of the greatest British generals, 
who called them *'the greatest fighters in the 
world." Soon the news of these bands *'on the 
wallaby"* at the call of country caught the 
imagination of the whole nation. Outback was 
terra incognita to the city-bred Australian, but 
that these men who were coming to offer their 
lives should walk into the city barefoot could not 
be thought of. The government was soon con- 
vinced that the weeks, and, in some cases, months 
that would be occupied in this long tramp need 
not be wasted. Military training could be given 
on the way, and they might arrive in camp fin- 
ished soldiers. 

So the snowball marches were at last recognized 
and controlled by the government. Whenever 
as many as fifty had been gathered together, in- 
structors, boots, and imiforms were sent along, 
and the march partook of a military character. 
No longer were they sundowners; they marched 
into town at the end of the day, four abreast, in 

* On the wallaby — on the tramp. 



34 "OVER THERE'* 

proper column of route, with a sergeant swinging 
his cane at the head, sometimes keeping step to 
the tune of mouth-organs. The imiforms were 
merely of blue dungaree with white calico hats, 
but they were serviceable, and all being dressed 
aHke made them look somewhat soldierly. The ser- 
geants always had an eye open for more recruits, 
and every town and station they passed through 
became a rallying-point for aspirants to the army. 

Their coming was now heralded — local shire 
councillors gathered to greet them, streets were 
beflagged, dinners were given — always, at every 
opportunity, appeals were made for more recruits. 
Sometimes, to the embarrassment of many a 
bushman whose meetings with women had been 
few and far between, there were many girls who 
in their enthusiasm farewelled them with kisses, 
though one can hardly imagine even a shy bush- 
man failing to appreciate these unaccustomed 
sweets ! 

The snowballs grew rapidly. Farmers let down 
their fences, and they marched triimiphantly 
through growing crops, each farmer vying with 
another to do honor to these men coming from 
the ends of the earth to deliver democracy. 

"They're fools, you say? Maybe you're right. 
They'll have no peace unless they fight. 
They've ceased to think; they only know 
They've got to go — yes, got to go !" * 

* Robert W. Service. 



HUMAN SNOWBALLS 35 

By the time they reached the camp many of 
these groups had grown to regiments, and under 
names such as ''Coo-ees," ''Kangaroos," "Wal- 
laroos," they marched through the streets of 
Sydney between cheering throngs to the tune of 
brass bands. Such was the intention, at any 
rate, but before they reached the railway sta- 
tion their military formation was broken up, 
and in their enthusiasm the people of the capital 
practically mobbed these "outbackers," loading 
them, not merely with cigarettes and candy, but 
before night came there was many a bushman 
who had never seen a city before who carried a 
load of liquor that made even his well-seasoned 
head spin. The "chain lightning" of the bush 
was outclassed with the cinematograph whiskey 
of the city, that made its moving throngs and 
streets pass before his eyes like a kaleidoscope. 
A day or two in camp soon restored their balance. 
The training en route bore fruit; their comman- 
dant was so impressed that some of these regi- 
ments were equipped and officered, in a few weeks 
embarking for overseas. 

Men from these regiments can be picked out 
to-day in London. If you see an Australian in 
a slouch-hat galloping his horse down Rotten 
Row, expecting "Algy" and "Gertrude" to give 
him a clear course, be sure it's a "Coo-ee !" 

When some Australian sprawls in the Troca- 
dero, inviting himself to table with the Earl of 



36 "OVER THERE" 

So-and-so, asking him to pass the butter, it's 
likely to be one of the ''Kangaroos." 

These AustraHans have had no master in their 
lives but the pitiless drought; they respect not 
Kings, but they love a real man who knows not 
fear and is kind to a horse. Masefield said of 
them in "Gallipoli": "They were in the pink of 
condition and gave a damn for no one !'* 

There is a certain hospital in London provided 
by a certain grand lady for convalescent Aus- 
tralians. She is very kind, but rather inclined to 
treat the patients as "exhibits" and show them 
off to her "tony" friends. The Australians bore 
this meekly for some time, but one day it was 
annoimced that some high personages would be 
visitors. On their arrival they found every bed 
was placarded, such as this: "No. i Bed — ^This 
is a Military Cross Hero. He bumped into a 
trench of Fritzes. If he hides his face tmder the 
bedclothes, it is because he is sensitive of his 
looks." "No. 2 Bed— Here Hes a D.S.O. (Dirty 
Stop-Out). 

" ' He stopped out of the trenches as long as he could. 
And now the old blighter must stop out for good.' " 

The bushman is a real man under all circum- 
stances, having no awe of authority, no hesita- 
tion in speaking his mind, but a great reverence 
for women and a real respect for a religion that 
does not savor of cant. 



CHAPTER IV 
TRAINING-CAMP LIFE 

The town of Bendigo received a great increase 
of liveliness by having to accommodate four or 
five thousand soldiers. 

It had known some lively times in the old gold 
days, but when its "yellow love" became thin, 
thousands of people went to other fields and the 
former flourishing city became a husk and as dull 
as only a declining mining city can become; but, 
as usually happens in old mining districts, when 
the gold gives out, the solid wealth of the soil in 
crop-growing capacity is developed, and Bendigo 
is prospering again through the labors of the till- 
ers of the soil, if not by the delvings of its miners. 
Still, farmers have not the same habit of "blow- 
ing in their earnings" and are, admittedly, a 
little dull. There was a story that when the 
town council put a notice at the busy centre — 
"Walk Round Comers" — ^many of the farmers 
made sure of keeping the law by getting out of 
their vehicles and leading their horses round 1 
The old-time miner was rather in the habit of 
smashing the unoffending lamp-post that barred 
his straight progress to the "pub.", where his fa- 
vorite brand of fire-water was on tap. 

37 



38 "OVER THERE" 

The Bendigoans will never forgive me for hav- 
ing failed to appreciate the fact that their Golden 
City was far ahead even of Melboiime. They 
would never believe that any one could make the 
mistake in regard to their city that an American 
did about an Australian seaport when he mar- 
velled at our frankness in putting notice at the 
entrance to the harbor ''Dead Slow/* and he never 
learned, after months of residence, that said no- 
tice was really a warning to shipping. 

But at any rate the soldiers livened things up. 
They were gathered from many States — their day 
was just ''one damn thing after another'* — some- 
times varied a bit with a right turn instead of 
left, and sometimes we would salute to the right 
instead of the left — ^but when night came, fun 
must be had somehow, and Bendigo had to sup- 
ply it. 

We all had some intelligence, so after spending 
a whole day in employment that forbade our 
using the smallest atom, we would seek during 
the night a "safety-valve." 

The camp was in the show-ground which natu- 
rally divided the young animals in training into 
different sorts — the elite had the grand stand, 
horse-boxes were grabbed by the N. C. O.'s, prize- 
cattle stalls were clean enough, but some line of 
mental association must have caused the powers 
that be to allot the *'pig-and-dog" section to the 
military police and their prey. 



TRAINING-CAMP LIFE 39 

It was fun on the arrival of a fresh contingent 
who were told ''they could take what accommoda- 
tion was left in the grand stand, the remainder 
having to bunk in the animal stalls," to see them 
rush the lower tiers, appropriating their six-foot 
length by dumping their "blueys" upon it, but 
that same night they would be convinced of their 
mistake as the old hands, living above them, ex- 
hibited their joy at having dodged the guard, 
returning in the small hours, by walking on 
every one possible on their way up top. Next 
morning there would be more applications for 
"horse-and-cattle" stalls, but the best ones would 
be gone, and they would have to be content to 
lie, six in a box, where a flooring-board was miss- 
ing through which the rats would make their 
nightly explorations. But even this was better 
than the lower tiers of the grand stand, as the rats 
would not always wake you running across your 
face, but a husky in military boots stepping on 
it would rouse even the deadest in slumber. As 
he would step on about twenty others as well, 
the mutual recriminations would continue for 
hours, and as the real culprit would settle down 
in the dark into his own place without a word no 
one would know who it was. There would come 
from up above: *'Shut up, there!" **What the 
h — are you makin* all that row about ?" and the 
answer: **So would you make a row if a b — b — 
elephant stepped on your face!" **Go and bag 



40 "OVER THERE" 

your head ! Anyway, there are two hundred men 
who didn't step on yotu* face trying to go to 
sleep, and it will be reveille in an hour or so/' 

These grand-stand couches were bad places at 
the best of times. They may have been high and 
dry, but were open to every breeze that blew and 
were sheltered only on the side from which the 
rain never came. The Bendigo show committee 
must have faced them that way so that the stm 
and weather would be right in the eyes of the 
onlookers and prevent them seeing any ''crook 
riding" or ''running dead," etc. 

The first item on the day's programme was the 
*' gargling parade." Meningitis had broken out 
in the camp and every one had to gargle his 
throat first thing in the morning with salt water. 
We would be marched under our sergeant to each 
receive oiu* half-pannikin of salt water at the 
A. M. C. tent. We would string out along the 
brick drain and then began the most horrible 
conglomeration of sounds that ever offended the 
ear. It was like the timing up of some infernal 
orchestra. I don't know why it is, but it is sur- 
prising how few men can gargle "like a gentle- 
man." For days I have not spoken to my best 
friend, who was most refined in other respects, 
but could not desist from spluttering and spray- 
ing the half dozen men nearest to him. We be- 
came friends again, but although we slept and 
messed together, I always took care never to be 



TRAINING-CAMP LIFE 41 

nearer than number ten from him at ''gargling 
parade." I never heard any complaints from 
the people at Bendigo about this early-morning 
discord, but I learn that no frogs have been heard 
in the neighborhood since. 

Our training at this camp was purely prelimi- 
nary — we certainly formed fours seven billion 
times, and turned to the right fourteen billion, and 
saluted a post that represented an officer so often, 
that the rush of air caused by the quick move- 
ment of hands and heads had worn the edge off it. 

We were so used to the sound of the sergeant- 
major's voice when he said, ''The company will 
move to right in fours,'* that, when a grazing 
donkey happened to "hee-haw," the whole com- 
pany formed fours. Even then only about half 
the company discovered the mistake — there was 
mighty little difference in the tones, anyway ! 

For a man that has never previously had mili- 
tary training, the first few weeks in camp is the 
most humiliating and trying experience that could 
be inflicted on him. I am quite sure that were 
it a prison and a treadmill he could not hate it 
the more. 

Here was I, never been under orders since I 
was breeched, and even before then getting my 
own way, suddenly finding myself with every 
movement I was to make laid down in regulations, 
with about a score of men round me all day to 
see that I carried them out correctly. 



42 "OVER THERE" 

How I used to hate that camp band, when it 
played at reveille, I cursed it in full BLAST be- 
cause it would wake me suddenly when I seemed 
to have only just lain down, and reviled it when 
it played softly because I would not hear it and 
some of the other boys would wake me only when 
they were fully dressed; and the last to fall in 
at roll-call were picked for cook's fatigue — peel- 
ing spuds and cleaning dixies ! How I loathed 
those dixies ! The more grease you got on your 
hands and clothes the more appeared to be left 
in the dixie ! The outside was sooty, the inside 
was greasy, and after I had done my best, the 
sergeant cook would make remarks about my 
ancestors which had nothing to do with the ques- 
tion, and I could not resent them lest I be detailed 
for a whole week of infernal dixie-cleaning. Any- 
way, all his ancestors had ever dared to do in 
the presence of mine was to touch their forelock. 

In those first weeks I think I would gladly 
have murdered every sergeant. It was "Num- 
ber lo, hold your head up!" "Put your heels 
together!" or a sarcastic remark as to whether 
I knew what a button was for, when I happened 
to miss doing one up in my flurry to dress in 
time, so that I would not be at the bottom of 
the line and picked for fatigue. 

It is not often realized what a purgatory the 
educated, independent man who enlists as a pri- 
vate has to go through before his spirit is tamed 



TRAINING-CAMP LIFE 43 

sufficiently to stand bossing, without resentment, 
by men socially and educationally inferior. There 
was a young officer who called me over one day 
and told me to clean his boots. I answered, 
"Clean them yourself !" and got three days C. C. 
(confinement to camp). This same officer took 
advantage of his rank on several other occasions 
and sought to humiliate me. He was a poor sort 
of a sport, and many months later when I was his 
equal in rank in France I punched his head, tell- 
ing him I had waited eighteen months to do 
it. So you see, everything comes to those who 
wait. 

As a matter of fact, it was only three weeks 
before I was made an acting sergeant, but I have 
great S3mipathy with the soft-handed rookie, for 
in those three weeks it seemed to me that it was 
an easy thing to die for one's country, but to train 
to be a soldier was about the worst kind of penal 
servitude a man could undergo. 

When acting as sergeant I was boss of five sta- 
bles, each containing eight men, who could only 
squeeze in the floor space by sleeping head to 
feet. These stables were only completely closed 
in on three sides, the entrance side being boarded 
up three feet high, except for the space of the 
doorway. There was no attempt to close up 
this opening, except after afternoon parade, when 
visitors would have arrived before our changing 
into reception-clothes was completed, and we 



44 "OVER THERE" 

would partially block it with our waterproof 
sheeting. 

I must mention that in the early days we had 
no real uniforms, but used to parade in blue 
dungarees and white cloth hats. They certainly 
made the men look "uniform,'' but ''uniformly 
hideous y'' and none of us would be seen in them 
by a pretty girl, for a king's ransom. As soon as 
afternoon parade was dismissed, we would dive 
for our quarters, and re-don our ''civvies" until 
next parade. The "cocky" would be resplen- 
dent again in his soft collar and red tie, and the 
city clerk in starched collar and cuffs. 

Sometimes, however, there was a variation in 
time between the watches of the sergeant-major 
on the parade-ground and the guard at the gate. 
Visitors would be let in too soon, and innocently 
curious dames would wonder what these rows of 
stables were for, and wandering in that direction, 
would suddenly beat a blushing retreat at the 
revelation of hundreds of young men getting into 
respectable clothes who had no other place in 
which to change. Even if you did put a blanket 
or W. P. sheet over the entrance, there were no 
tacks, or nails, and it always fell down at the 
most awkward moments. However, the visitors 
soon got wise, and in about half an hour the boys 
who had callers would be proudly showing their 
friends, by the name above the feed-box, that 
the previous occupant of their quarters was the 



TRAINING-CAMP LIFE 45 

famous "Highflyer," winner of scores of cups, 
etc. 

There were a good lot of us there from other 
states, and we had no special callers, but there 
were always girls who came out to see a Sergeant 
Martin or some such name not on the rolls. 
''Couldn't we find him for you?" If we did 
happen to find a sergeant of that name, he would 
not happen to be the one she wanted, then we 
would offer to do the honors of the camp, and 
as she would not like the hamper brought for 
her friend to be wasted, an acquaintance was 
soon struck up. Some boys were too shy, but 
nearly all of us had visitors after we had been in 
camp a week or two. 

The town had appointed a soldiers* entertain- 
ment committee, and they gave us a concert every 
night in the Y. M. C. A. tent. These were high- 
class shows, but most of us preferred to go into 
the town though we only had leave till six 
o'clock. 

Some of us used to stay in town till midnight, 
trusting to our ingenuity in bluffing the guard. 
Many were the dodges used to gain entrance 
to the camp. Some townsboys could get passes 
till midnight about once a week, and instead of 
handing these to the guard, as they hurried past, 
they would substitute a piece of blank paper. If 
they got past it was good for another occasion, 
as the date was easily altered. If they were 



46 "OVER THERE" 

pulled up they would apologize profusely and 
hand up the right pass. Sometimes we would 
wait until there were a score of us, and while the 
sentry was examining the first pass the others 
would rush the gate. Rarely could more than 
one or two be identified, and the odds were in 
our favor. 

Soon the guard was doubled, and only a small 
wicket was opened, where but one man could 
pass through at a time. Then we scraped holes 
imder the galvanized-iron fence that surrounded 
the show-ground, concealing them carefully with 
bushes and watching out for the pickets who pa- 
trolled the outside of the camp. 

I think I got my best training in scouting 
dodging these pickets. I have climbed trees, 
crawled into hollow logs, and played 'posstun in 
gullies to escape them. Being caught meant not 
only several days in the guard-tent, but the loss 
of the chance of "stripes." 

There was really not much excitement in the 
town and many of us just stayed late for the 
excitement of breaking the law without being 
caught. It was the outbreak of our personality 
after being mere cogs in a drill-machine all day. 
I never was guilty of returning except after hours, 
and I never was caught, even when extraordinary 
precautions were taken to get the delinquents. 
Sometimes a check-roll would be called, at some 
uncertain hour, but it was always a point of honor 



TRAINING-CAMP LIFE 47 

for the boys in camp to answer ''present" for any 
absent mates. 

Evidently I was destined to be a scout. From 
this camp I was drafted into the intelligence sec- 
tion for specialized training. That has been my 
work all the time overseas, and I never had 
harder work dodging Fritz's sentries than those 
pickets round Bendigo show-ground. 



CHAPTER V 
CONCENTRATED FOR EMBARKATION 

One morning there was great excitement in the 
Bendigo camp. An announcement was made 
that members of rifle-clubs would be tried out on 
the range and all qualifying with ninety per cent 
of marks would be sent overseas in the earliest 
draft. All who had ever fired a gun, and some 
who hadn't, stepped forward for trial, but on the 
range the eligibles were foimd to be only fifty, of 
whom I was lucky enough to be one. 

The next day we lined up for a final medical 
inspection. As we passed the doctor there were 
none to congratulate us, but we made allowances, 
knowing how sore the others were who had failed 
to qualify. We packed up our kits and marched 
to the train leaving a camp literally ''green with 
envy." We shouted good-bye, amazed at the good 
fortune that had chosen us to escape many months 
of deadly grind in the training-camp, and it seemed 
as we passed in single file through the old show- 
ground turnstile as if already we had left Australia 
behind, and in imagination our feet felt the roll 
of the ship that in our fancy was even now carry- 
ing us out on the ''Great Adventure"; and our 
thoughts wafted farewells to mother or wife, as 

48 



EMBARKATION 49 

we bade them never fear but that we would 
show that their men were not unworthy of their 
regard. 

Our spirits had not been so elated had we 
known that more weeks of camp life in Australia 
yet awaited us. Had we not thought that we 
were destined for immediate embarkation we 
might have been better disposed to appreciate 
Broadmeadows, but as it was it seemed to us 
about the last place made — and not yet finished. 

As the days passed, our detestation of the place 
grew, but v^e soon f otmd that our impatience of de- 
lay in embarking was shared by several thousand 
others who had gathered there from many States 
and been weeks trampling out the grass and rais- 
ing the dust in those accursed fields till it choked 
them, when they had long before expected to be 
inhaling the ozone from the deck of some good 
ship that with every knot bore them nearer to 
the strife for liberty and a man's chance. 

This camp was always seething with discon- 
tent, for with the delay was in every man's heart 
the haunting fear that the war might be over 
ere he got there, and none could think without 
dread of the possibility that we might have to 
endure the lowest depths of humiliation in return- 
ing home without having struck a blow. 

On one occasion the impatience that was like 
a festering sore among the men of this camp 
nearly resulted in a show of mutiny. Oil was 



so "OVER THERE 



»> 



added to the flame of our discontent by the tact- 
lessness of the camp adjutant. He will always be 
known to the men of those days as the "Puppy." 
His father was a commanding officer, and though 
he was only nineteen years of age and his voice was 
just breaking, he rode the "highhorse of authority" 
over those men as though they were schoolchildren. 
When his lady friends came to visit him he would 
order a special parade so that they might see him 
in command of ''his men, doncherknow ! " But 
his "high horse" nearly threw him one day when 
he gave the order, "Move to the right and fours, 
form fours!" and not a man moved. Blushing 
like a schoolgirl, he called the officers out for con- 
sultation and sent for the commandant. When, 
however, real men took command there was no 
further trouble, though the boys openly voiced 
their complaints — "that their leave was restricted 
for no reason" — "that they were on parade after 
hours," and "Why don't they send us away to 
fight, an3rway? That's what we enlisted for." 
The annoimcement that we would be sailing soon 
brought forth cheers and every one was in good 
humor again. Only let us be sure that we were off 
to war, and we could stand even the Puppy's 
yelping. 

But all the same, there were a couple more 
weeks of the mud and dust to be endured. I have 
been in sand-storms in the interior of Australia 
when the sun was blotted out and in Egypt when 



EMBARKATION 51 

the Kam-seen said to the mountain, **Be thou 
removed !" and it was removed in a single night 
some fifty miles away, but neither of these is 
worse than some of the dust-storms that blow over 
Melbourne, and at Broadmeadows we got their 
full force. We would march in from the parade- 
ground not being able to see the man in front of 
us, and in the light of the candles in our tents our 
very features were blotted out and nothing but 
eyes and teeth were visible, except that, perhaps, 
in some faces two small holes would suggest 
where the nose might be. It was only after a 
good deal of shaking that the place could be dis- 
cerned where neck emerged from collar. There 
were some serious accidents in these dust-storms 
through men trying to bump buildings out of 
their way, and on one occasion two poor fellows 
were nearly killed in failing to give the "right- 
away" to a couple of sheets of galvanized iron. 
And when it rained, great snakes ! Where was 
there ever mud like that ! We certainly did a 
good deal in mixing the soil of those paddocks, 
for we would carry an acre of it from around the 
tents onto the drill-ground, where we would care- 
fully scrape it off, and when we marched back we 
would bring another acre on our boots to form a 
hillock at our tent door. If there had been but 
an inch of rain we would lift up on the soles of our 
boots all the wet earth, uncovering a surface of 
dust to pepper our evening meal. 



52 "OVER THERE" 

Large sums of money have been spent on this 
camp since those days and it is now a nursery for 
the recruits who have volunteered three years 
late and need the enticement of feather beds to 
induce them to leave mother. It has been thor- 
oughly drained and terraced, and comfortable 
huts have been erected, but we simply rolled in 
blankets on bare Mother Earth and sheltered 
from sun and rain in tents that were supposed to 
be water-proof, and generally were unless you 
happened to touch them when wet. If you did 
accidentally happen to rub against the sides, there 
would be a stream of water pouring down on you 
all night. There was no escaping this, for there 
was not an inch of ground inside the tent that was 
not covered by man. In fact, with ten in a tent, 
one of us had to lie three-quarters outside, any- 
way, which was the chief reason why I was never 
last in. Dressing was a problem, for every one 
must needs dress at the same time, and from the 
outside the tent must have looked something like 
a camel whose hump was constantly slipping. 
Perhaps that is why every one used safety-razors 
after a while, for although our faces would fre- 
quently look as though they had been mixed up in 
barbed wire, there was really not much danger of 
cutting one's throat, for even though you received 
a forty-horse-power jolt at a critical moment, 
the razor-guard prevented your life being actually 
imperilled. 



EMBARKATION 53 

In this camp we received our uniforms and 
equipment, but it was only after a lot of exchang- 
ing had been done that our uniforms made us look 
soldierly. Oh, Lord ! what caricatures many of 
us were after the first issue. There were prac- 
tically no out-sizes in tunics, but plenty of the 
men were not merely out-size, but odd-sized. 
Some little fellows looked as if they were wear- 
ing father's coat, and there were others who 
looked as if they were wearing that of baby 
brother. Some had to turn back the cuffs two 
or three times, while others had at least a foot of 
wrist and forearm showing. But the breeches 1 
Oh, my Aunt Sarah ! Some were able to tuck 
the bottoms into their boots, while others had to 
wind puttees above their knees. There were 
men who couldn't bend comfortably, while others 
had room to carry a couch about with them. 
However, the orders were that we were to keep 
on exchanging until we got something like a fit, 
but as there were varieties in the quality of the 
cloth, there were those who preferred a misfit to 
poor material, so that there were always a num- 
ber who looked like Charlie Chaplin. 

New arrivals in camp were always called ''Mar- 
malades," because they were distinguished by 
their relish for marmalade jam. After they had 
consumed over a ton of it and forgotten the taste 
of any other kind of jam then they looked at a 
tin of it with loathing, when they would be con- 



54 "OVER THERE'' 

sidered to have passed the "recruit" stage and 
be on a fair way to becoming soldiers. 

Long before we got our uniforms we were issued 
greatcoats, hats, and boots. At this time the 
only other clothes we had were the blue dungarees 
and white cloth hats called ''fatigue dress." No 
self-respecting man would allow a lady friend to 
see him in this rig-out. Yet one must breathe the 
free air of liberty some time, and "confinement to 
camp" was a punishment for crime. So we com- 
promised by strolHng the city streets with our 
military hats and boots, with the army great- 
coats seeking to hide the blue hideousness of our 
dimgarees. Some of us sought to be unconscious 
of the foot or two of blue cloth showing beneath 
the greatcoat, and these were times when we en- 
vied the little chap enveloped in a greatcoat that 
hung down as low as his boots. We received at 
this time the nickname "Keystone soldiers,'* 
some genial ass conceiving that we looked as funny 
as the Keystone police. These greatcoats were 
a bit out of place on a day that was over a hundred 
in the shade, and they did not look exactly the 
thing at a dainty tea-table in a swell cafe, but we 
clung to those greatcoats as our only salvation, 
for they did hide the blue horror beneath. I 
should have explained that our civilian clothes 
had been taken from us, and we were forbidden, 
under severe penalty, to wear any but regulation 
dress. Nevertheless, the lucky dogs who had rel- 



EMBARKATION 55 

atives near by would take the risk and borrow a 
cousin's rig-out, but we hated them as mean dogs, 
feeHng they were taking an unfair advantage; 
and, if we got a chance, we would, by innuendo, 
hint to the lady in the case that these fellows did 
so much dixie-cleaning that their dungarees were 
too stiff to wear ! 

Nearing the close of a long, sunny Australian 
day — the air soft, warm, and sweet, and the sky 
suffused with a lovely pink. It was visiting-day — 
Friday. In the camp, rows of figures in blue 
dimgarees and white hats were marching round 
and round the drill-ground, turning from left to 
right, forming fours, then back to two deep, and 
so on and so on. Out across the flat ground be- 
tween the camp and the railway-station, coming 
steadily toward the camp, was a very straggly 
line of white figures. As they came closer, one 
saw they were women and girls, fresh and dainty 
in summer frocks and hats, all carrying big baskets, 
suitcases, and all manner of strange and weirdly 
shaped parcels. A few odd males among them, 
mostly nearing sixty, or under ten. Some were 
portly, puffing a little, some old, their heavy par- 
cels making their lips quiver and their step slow — 
and girls, just multitudes of them, all sizes, ages, 
and shapes — blondes, brunettes, in-betweens, and 
from every rank in the social scale — mostly in 
groups of any number from two to twenty — some 
chaperoned, some not. Here and there one saw 



56 "OVER THERE" 

one alone carrying an extra heavy suitcase, which 
somehow you knew contained extra-specially 
good things to eat, and when you looked at her 
face under her big hat a certain something there 
told you that on the. third finger of the left hand 
under her glove you would surely find a diamond 
half-loop, and even, perhaps, a very plain new gold 
band ! 

From the drill-ground the soldiers could see 
this crowd of womenfolk steadily coming toward 
them, and grew acutely aware of their shapeless, 
grubby dungarees, dusty boots, and perspiring 
faces under tired-looking white hats. Agonized 
glances were turned on the sergeant-major as, 
with his face utterly expressionless, ignoring the 
oncoming feminine figures, he still right-about- 
turned and quick-marched them. The fluttering 
white frocks came closer and closer, and as they 
began to get near the gate imploring glances were 
turned in the direction of the guard, praying they 
would not let any one in. Then suddenly, to 
their immense relief, they were dismissed; then 
it was just one mad rush for tents. Swearing 
breathlessly as they bumped into each other or 
tripped over tent-pegs and ropes, they ran, putting 
on an extra spurt every time they glanced over 
their shoulders and saw the women advancing 
upon them in mass formation. Changing was 
soon accomplished, not without a good deal of 
confusion, mixing up of garments, and splashing 



EMBARKATION S7 

water around, but when they were finally all 
dressed and again in khaki uniforms smiles of 
satisfaction spread over clean and shiny faces 
as they glanced down at neat uniforms and well- 
polished boots — Smoke-o that day had seen much 
activity in the business of brushing and pol- 
ishing. 

Down at the gate the picket was having a busy 
time answering questions: "Could you tell me 
where I will find Private Mcintosh?" **What 
tent is my brother in, d'you know?** But as 
many of the eager questioners were, well, very 
delightful, none of the boys on picket duty kicked 
at their job. Some of the boys who were quicker 
dressers than the others now began to come down 
to the gate, bustling into the crowd of womenfolk, 
looking eagerly for their own particular visitors, 
and, seeing them, dashing up, hugging mothers 
and sisters, shaking bashfully the hand of "sister's 
friend," gathering up all their parcels, and, with 
them all following close behind, leading the way 
to "a dandy spot" for supper. In course of time 
the sorting-out process was complete, and the 
camp was dotted with hundreds of groups, large 
and small, all laughing and talking, and busy 
unpacking those very weighty parcels. Boys who 
had changed into uniform with the others and gone 
down to the gate, though not really expecting any 
one as they were from out back and had no city 
friends, but still feeling lonesome, and, perhaps, 



58 "OVER THERE 



i> 



having a forlorn hope that there might be some one, 
had helped rather bewildered girls, carrying their 
baskets and finding the man they wanted — these 
boys now looked longingly around at these groups, 
hoping some one would invite them to join in ; and 
how their faces brightened when one of their tent- 
mates, looking up from a hunk of frosted cake, 
would see them and shout, "Hey, Bill! Here!" 
and, after the agony of being presented to "My 
mater, my sister, and Miss Stephenson," things 
were just O. K. 

Yet there were a good many lonely ones, boys 
who hadn*t even bothered to change, still in their 
ill-shaped blue dungarees, dusty boots, and cloth 
hats, some of them walking round, their heads 
down, and kicking at every clump of grass or 
stone that came within reach of their boots — 
some of them, too lonely even to look at the fun, 
hanging over the fences, occasionally exchanging 
a few peevish words with each other, while 
others gathered round the old man who kept a 
stall just inside the gate and bought lemonade, 
ginger ale, and arrowroot biscuits, consuming them 
with much assimied gusto, while others still sat 
inside their tents or the Y. M. C. A. hut. 

Looking at these boys gave one a deep heart- 
ache, but the sob in one's throat changed suddenly 
to a laugh as one looked at their hats. Americans 
in Australia have always held the prize for origi- 
nality in headgear, but that same prize must now 



EMBARKATION 59 

be handed over to our soldiers in camp. What 
they can do with one simple, unoffending, white- 
cloth cricket-hat passes all belief. Seldom, as 
is the case with their dungarees, did these boys 
have a hat that really fitted them, those with big 
heads had the smallest hats, and those with extra 
small heads got the largest size. They were all 
shades, from their original pure white down, or up, 
to an exact match with Mother Earth. And the 
shapes ! Some wore them turned down all round, 
some turned up all round, some turned up in 
front and down at the back, some vice versa, some 
turned up on the left side and down at the right, 
and some down at the left and up at the right; 
some had tucked the front part in, leaving a large 
expanse of bare brow, while the back part, turned 
down, shaded the nape of their neck. Some ap- 
plied this idea reversed, turning in the back; some 
turned the brim right in except for a small peak 
k la jockey; some had a peak back and front, 
made by rolling in both sides, and some settled 
the question by turning the whole brim in, the 
resultant skull-cap effect being such as to bring 
tears to the eyes of all beholders. 

These disconsolate, lonely faces, with, in the 
cases of the younger boys, tear-filled eyes, sur- 
mounted by these absurd, preposterous hats — 
it was truly a case of not knowing whether to 
laugh or to cry; so by laughing hard, the women 
who saw them hid their tears. 



6o *'OVER THERE" 

It soon began to get dark — in Australia our twi- 
light is short — so suitcases and baskets were re- 
packed, but only this time with plates, cups, 
spoons, etc. — and one by one the parties rose and 
went over to the Y. M. C. A. tent for the concert. 
In the tent tables had all been moved out and 
rows of chairs and forms filled it. In a short time 
they were all occupied, the officers sitting in front, 
some with visitors, others alone and casting very 
longing eyes at the lovely girls coming in with 
the men. 

The concert was given, as they mostly were, by 
an amateur club, and had its ups and downs. 
But every one enjoyed it — the items that took the 
popular fancy were loudly applauded, and the 
others that weren't so good — well, no one minded, 
as every one was happy, and the lights were very 
dim ! 

By the end of the concert it was nine o'clock, 
the time for all visitors to be shooed off home. 
The bugles blew ''The First Post," and every 
one, very unwilling, made their way slowly down 
to the gate. Here good-byes were said, meetings 
arranged for the boys' next leave, promises made 
to come out next week, with much chattering and 
laughing, though here and there, back in the 
shadows, would be couples, very quiet, maybe 
engaged, perhaps just married, hating to separate. 

At last the remaining white frocks flutter 
through the big gate and join in the stream al- 



EMBARKATION 6i 

ready straggling across country toward the rail- 
way-station, every one quiet and very tired. 

In camp the boys stroll over to their tents, 
exchanging an occasional word with pals, but for 
the most part silent, and turn in, tired also, and 
a little thoughtful. In an hour all the stars shine 
brightly from the velvety, blue-black sky, the soft- 
scented air wafts in through open tent-flaps, 
lights are out, and all is quiet in the camp, except 
for the periodical changing of pickets and the occa- 
sonal roar of a passing train in the distance. 



CHAPTER VI 
MANY WEEKS AT SEA 

A TROOP-SHIP has no longer a name, but al- 
though the ship we boarded at Port Melbourne 
docks was designated by the number A 14, it was 
not hard to discover that we were on a well- 
known ocean-liner, for on life-buoys and wheel- 
house the paint was not so thick that inquisitive- 
ness could not see the name that in pre-war days 
the Aberdeen line proudly advertised as one of 
their most comfortable passenger-carrying ships. 
That meant little to us, for her trimmings of com- 
fort had been stripped off but for a few cabins left 
for the officers, and when we were mustered in our 
quarters, we wondered where we would sleep, 
for no bunks met our eye. 

Embarkation is for every one concerned the 
most tedious, red-tapeyist incident in a soldier's 
career. For fear of spies the exact day had been 
kept secret, and although we had expected to 
leave weeks previously, and had, at least, twenty 
times said our tearful farewells, when the actual 
day arrived there was no expectation of it and no 
farewells. The night previously men had said to 
their wives, **See you to-morrow, dear!" — meet- 
ings were arranged with best girls, for the movies — 

62 



MANY WEEKS AT SEA 63 

in fact, not the faintest rumor had spread through 
the camp that there was any likelihood of our sail- 
ing for weeks, and here in the early dawn we were 
lined up on the wharf, being counted off like 
sheep, and allotted our quarter cubic foot of 
ship's space; preparing for our adventure over- 
seas without the slightest chance of letting any one 
know what had happened to us. We could sym- 
pathize with the feelings of our folks as they would 
journey out to camp with the usual good things 
to eat only to find we had gone. By this time 
we would be well out at sea, en route for the Great 
Adventure, but it was hard luck for mothers and 
wives suddenly to find us gone without warning, 
and having to wait many weeks for the first 
letter. 

It was wet, it was cold, it was dark on that 
wharf. If we were counted once, we were counted 
fifty times, and for hours we stood in the rain be- 
cause there were two men too many. No, not 
men, for they were found to be boys of fifteen who 
had stolen uniforms and had hidden near the wharf 
for days to get away with the troops, but they 
were discovered, as every man had his name 
called and was identified by his officer as he passed 
up the gangway. One of them was not to be kept 
off, however: he slipped round the stem and 
climbed up the mooring cables like a monkey, 
and as no one gave him away he was undiscovered 
imtil rations were issued, so, perforce, he was a 



64 "OVER THERE'' 

member of the ship's company and went with us 
to Egypt. 

It's marvellous what quantities of men a troop- 
ship can swallow. There were a thousand men 
on our ship and we wondered how we would possi- 
bly move about, for we were marched 'tween decks, 
and seated on benches ranged alongside deal 
tables, and when all were aboard there was not 
room for a man more. It was explained to us 
that these were our quarters. We could under- 
stand them as eating quarters, but where were we 
to sleep ? It was soon evident ; above our heads 
were rows of black iron hooks; these were for 
our hammocks, which, with a blanket apiece, 
were in bins at the end of each deck. Hammock 
sleeping was not new to me, so I got a good deal of 
fun seeing the early-to-bedders climb in one side 
of their hammock, only to fall out the other, and 
very few could manipulate their blankets. One 
could see that nearly every one was nervous for 
fear of turning over in his sleep, but there was 
really no danger of falling out, for when all the 
hammocks were up they were packed so closely 
that if you did roll over, you would only roll into 
the next hammock on top of some fellow who 
would, no doubt, think the mast had fallen. 
There were a good number of men to whom life 
would have been much pleasanter the next few 
days if they could have stayed in their hammocks 
all day, as, no matter how the ship rolls, a ham- 



MANY WEEKS AT SEA 65 

mock, being swung, always keeps level. Un- 
fortunately, all hammocks had to be taken down 
at 6 A. M. so we could sit at the tables for break- 
fast, and to most of the boys that first morning 
getting out of their hammocks was like stepping 
onto a razzle-dazzle. We were now well at sea 
and the general cry was in the words of the song : 
"Sea, sea, why are you angry with me?** Dis- 
cipline had to be relaxed those first days, for a 
seasick man is quite willing to be shot and has 
no interest in the war, and doesn't care which 
horse wins the boat-race. Seasickness never gets 
any sympathy from those who are immune, but 
sometimes just retribution comes on the scoffer, 
and it is some satisfaction to see a man's face 
turn green who but a few hours ago had been 
whistling with a selfish cheerfulness while you were 
revealing your own sticky past to the mermaids. 
After about a week parades were announced, 
and in the early morning we were lined up for 
*' physical jerks," by which is meant calisthenics, 
or setting-up exercises. We now realized the 
appropriateness of the nickname, for the first 
stretching would cause a number to rush to the 
side, where they would attempt to jerk their 
hearts out, and also, standing on tiptoe on a roll- 
ing ship, one can only bend in jerks. To our joy 
these parades were short affairs, for there was 
only the limited space of the boat and saloon 
decks and each platoon had to take its turn in 



66 "OVER THERE" 

occupying this very limited parade-ground — so 
the greater part of the time was spent in passing 
remarks about the slovenly work of every other 
squad but one's own. Of course there were always 
fatigue and guard duties. I'll never forget my 
first butcher's fatigue, for when I stooped to pick 
up a carcass of mutton, I thought the best way to 
carry it would be to hang it round my neck like 
a feather boa, but no log of wood was stiffer or 
more unbending than that frozen woolly, and I 
asked if we were expected to eat that. No won- 
der so much coal is used on a ship when the food 
has to be thawed out ! But this job was very 
comforting, for I saw the inside of the ship's store- 
house, and never feared, though we were wrecked 
on a desert island, there would be any danger of 
our starving. 

We turned out some pretty ragtime guards — 
sentries were posted at different parts of the ship, 
the most important being the guard over the 
liquor, and another sentry at the saloon gangway, 
whose duty it was to prevent any private or 
other common person trespassing on the hallowed 
ground sacred to the cigarette-ash and footprints 
of officers. This last sentry was expected to 
salute the O. C. troops and commander of the 
ship, all other salutes being dispensed with, as 
on board ship we saw our officers some five hundred 
and ninety times a day, and their arms would 
have been whirling like windmills had they been 



MANY WEEKS AT SEA 67 

compelled to return our salutes. I remember 
one sentry failing to recognize the commander-in- 
chief, and presently the colonel spoke to him thus : 
"What are you doing here, my man?" "I'm 

supposed to be a sentry." "Well, do you 

know that I am supposed to be the colonel ? " 

"Oh! Well, I'm supposed to give you a 

salute!" And the sentry forthwith performed 
his belated duty. 

On this ship the officers were all pretty popular, 
especially one who was never known by any title 
or other designation than "Jerry." Jerry had 
more self-confidence than any man I have ever 
met. He could not correctly put a platoon 
through its formations, but would not hesitate 
to take charge of a battalion. When he had 
given some orders and had hopelessly mixed up 
a company, he would look at the mess with an air 
of superiority that proclaimed to all and simdry 
that he was commanding a lot of imbeciles, and 
then he would calmly throw the responsibility 
of disentangling themselves upon the men by 
the order: "As you were !" 

It was a puzzle to all as to how he got his 
commission. He was tall and spruce, most scru- 
pulous in the fit of his uniform, but absolutely too 
lazy to learn his job. He was something of a 
joke as an officer, yet his men got to like him for 
his good humor and absolute indifference to the 
censure of his superiors. In instructing a squad 



68 "OVER THERE" 

he would quite calmly read aloud out of a drill- 
book right under the eyes of the colonel, and his 
air of calm assurance under rebuke would so an- 
noy his superiors that he frequently escaped much 
censure, for few senior officers are willing to dis- 
play a loss of temper in front of the men, as it 
makes for a loss of dignity. One day Jerry found 
a sentry asleep at his post while he was on 'Visit- 
ing rounds" as officer of the guard. All Jerry 
did was to drawl out: "Next time you go to 
sleep, my lad, you'll wake up in hell!" As a 
matter of fact, he was too good-natured to have 
a man punished, and as the boys realized this, 
they would not let any one take advantage of 
him. We did not think there was anything 
that Jerry could do properly imtil the first con- 
cert. 

These concerts were weekly affairs, and we had 
three artists who were equal to the best. Tom 
Dawson, the Tivoli comedian, who was after- 
ward killed in France, was one of us and always 
willing to provide half a dozen songs, with his 
india-rubber face stretched to suit each part. 
He was a prime favorite. Then we had an oper- 
atic tenor who could sing a solo from almost any 
Italian opera, but his talent w^as not appreciated 
— some one would be bound to call ''Pretty 
Joey!" in the middle of his most impassioned 
passages. He got plenty of applause when he 
sang about "the end of a perfect day," even 



MANY WEEKS AT SEA 69 

though the day had been as beastly as a severe 
storm could make it for a thousand-odd men 
cooped up so closely that only a third of them 
could see the sky at one time. His efforts to 
educate oin* musical taste completely failed, for 
the annoimcement that he was going to sing in 
Italian always raised cries of '*Steaka-de-oyst' !" 
"Fiji banana!" etc. 

Another real artist played the mandolin, and 
when he appeared with it first of all he was greeted 
with cries of ''Gertie!" As he played, however, 
he held the boys spellbound and never after failed 
to get an encore, though many still held that a 
mandolin was only a ' ' sissy ' ' instnmient . But the 
star performer, to every one's surprise, was Jerry. 
Here was one thing he could do, at any rate ! 
His recitation of **Gunga Dhin" brought tears to 
our eyes, and thereafter no programme was com- 
plete without this item. 

Toward the end of the voyage the concerts lost 
popularity, as there were only three or foiu* art- 
ists; and there was no stock of music on board, 
so their two or three songs became as wearisome 
as a much-played gramophone record. The box- 
ing and wrestling matches always held the crowd, 
and there was no lack of competition, for the 
nmner-up was always sure that he would have won 
but for bad luck and was ever ready for another 
try. These were no ** pussy" shows, for we had 
some professionals among us: ** Sailor Duffy," one 



70 "OVER THERE" 

of our second lieutenants, was middleweight cham- 
pion of Victoria, and one of the ship's crew was 
champion wrestler of London. There were others 
who required convincing, at any rate, that they 
were not as good as the champions, and anyway 
there were always plenty of disputes during the 
day that by general consent were settled in the 
ring at night. This was how we passed the long 
weeks to Colombo, our first port of call. 

To the white man having to make his home at 
Colombo it may not be paradise, but to the sea- 
weary landlubber who has been weeks without 
a sight of land, there never was place more delight- 
ful. The first day we weren't allowed ashore, but 
there were other troop-ships lying in the harbor, 
and soon pretty well every man who could find a 
footing on the rigging was semaphoring like mad: 
"Who are you? Where 'd you come from? 
Where are you going ?" We discovered one boat 
was full of New Zealanders and we coo-eed and 
waved wildly to them, feeling that New Zealand 
ought to be part of Australia, anyhow, and they 
were almost homelanders. There were also some 
Indian troops bound for the Persian Gulf, and im- 
mediately the rumor started that that was where 
we were boimd, and everybody looked pretty 
blue. Pretty soon some coal-lighters came along- 
side — that is, we discovered there was coal in 
them after they had discharged their living freight, 
for they were simply black with niggers. There 



MANY WEEKS AT SEA 71 

did not seem to be an inch of boat space that was 
not covered up by nigger. About half of them 
started to work, for the method of coaling in these 
parts is for the niggers to carry aboard about a 
teaspoonful in a wicker basket. By working in 
shifts and maintaining a constant stream of men 
hurrying from lighters to ship each with his spoon- 
ful of coal, sufficient is taken inboard in a very 
long time. Those who were not coaHng, loudly 
proclaimed that they would dive for money and 
thereafter, by day and night, our ears were 
assailed by their cries: ''Me di'." "Gib it 
money." "You throw." It was very amusing 
for the first hour or two, but we soon got heartily 
sick of their importunity and their incessant 
chatter. 

The second day we were allowed a couple of 
hours ashore, and as many had a three- weeks' 
thirst, they saw no more of Colombo than the in- 
side of a hotel bar. Others of us were amused 
at being escorted through the streets by the nigger 
policemen with whips, who did not hesitate to 
belabor very energetically any niggers who ap- 
proached us too closely; but while the policeman 
was chasing one nigger another would seize his 
chance and offer for sale native jewelry of ex- 
quisite workmanship, at what would seem to us a 
ridiculously low price, but we were assured by 
every one that whatever price they asked was 
ten times its value. Some of the boys were after 



72 ' " OVER THERE " 

souvenirs, and as soon as it was realized that we 
had money to spend we were followed about, dur- 
ing oiu- whole stay, by scores of merchants, some 
simply loaded down with the entire stock of their 
shops. Our time ashore was too short for us to 
see what Colombo really was like, but it was 
delightful to be able to stretch our legs ashore 
again, and the novelty and charm of the streets 
and the luxuriant tropical vegetation made us 
feel that we would be willing to remain a life- 
time amid scenes of such fascination and color. 

After Colombo the days were more wearisome 
than before. The weather was scorching and 
only a few of us could get on deck at a time for a 
breath of fresh air. Long before nightfall the 
decks would be covered with men lying on their 
blankets, for permission was given to as many as 
there was room for to sleep on the boat and 
saloon decks, and as there was only room for a 
twentieth of the complement, one had to grab one's 
position early. Some preferred a comfortable 
night's rest to their tea, and so would occupy their 
man's length of deck space while the others were 
eating. 

Going through the Red Sea was a feast of 
beauty, for the evening colors of the sand-hills 
were gorgeous, and inconceivable to any but an 
eye-witness. We were now on biblical ground, and 
great were the religious arguments that waged. 
One boy wrote home that one of the ship's anchors 



MANY WEEKS AT SEA 73 

had brought up a wheel from the chariot of Pha- 
raoh, and his mother had repHed that she was glad 
he was visiting such historic country, but when he 
later on told her that *'Big Lizzie" was firing 
shells twenty-seven miles at the Dardanelles, she 
wrote him that she was afraid life in the army was 
making him exaggerate things and that he should 
keep strictly to the truth ! 

There was fighting going on at Aden when we 
passed — some Bedouins were attacking the town 
from the desert side, but evidently it was not 
serious, for, to our disappointment, we were not 
asked to join in. We were merely examined by 
a British war-ship and told to pass on. 

At Suez we disembarked and we were none of 
us sorry to say good-bye to the old ship, and there 
were no fond farewells taken of the crew, for they 
were as unpatriotic a set of scoundrels as ever 
sailed under the British flag. They robbed us 
right and left. They stole our ration jam, selling 
it to us in the form of a drink. A penny a glass 
would buy ''pineapple cordial, " which was merely 
a tin of pineapple jam mixed up in a ship's bucket 
of iced water. ' ' Orangeade ' ' was marmalade jam 
and water. Strange to say, there were always 
enough ''boobs" among us soldiers to fall for it. 
On board ship we were not allowed to wear boots, 
as the hobnails in our military footwear could cut 
up the deck, so those that hadn't shoes went bare- 
foot, but at the end of the voyage when we began 



74 *'OVER THERE" 

to search for our boots there was the deuce to 
pay. Only half the men cotild find them at all, 
and it was only through a search of the whole 
ship that many of us did not have to walk in the 
sands of Egypt barefooted. The missing pairs 
were fotmd among the sailors, of course, one of 
them even having six. It is a wonder those 
sailors didn't cut our hair when we were asleep 
to stuff their pillows — they certainly skinned us 
as close as they could. 



PART II 
EGYPT 



CHAPTER VII 

THE LAND OF SAND AND SWEAT 

How we hated Egypt before we left it! It 
may be a land of fascination to the tourist who 
drives about in gharris to view its wonders and 
stays at a European hotel, but to be there as a 
soldier, to lie in its vile sand, to swallow its con- 
glomerated stinks, to rub the filth off the seats in 
the third-class train-carriages, to have under your 
eyes continually the animated Itmip of muck that 
the *'Gyppo" is, to have yotu* ears filled continu- 
ally with the vile expressions that the Egyptian 
conceives as wit, is an experience that makes one 
so disgusted that few Australians that were there 
will ever want to see the rotten cotmtry again. 
At first, however, all was novelty, and we were 
like children on a picnic as we marched from the 
wharf into the third-class carriages of the Egyp- 
tian state railways waiting for us just outside the 
gates. It was some job getting into those car- 
riages. Ordinarily white people travelled first- 
class, but we were troops, and it was like pushing 
against a wall to pass the smell that came from 
the doors of these carriages that had been the 
preserves of the unwashed nigger of varied age 
and sex for the Lord knows how many years. 

77 



78 "OVER THERE'* 

We left the ship with twenty-four hours' pro- 
visions, which were all consumed on that train. 
Some of us managed to get a little sleep by pack- 
ing all the equipment in the end of the carriage 
and sitting on the floor back to back. Now and 
again the train would stop at nowhere in particu- 
lar, when we would be assailed by anything-but- 
clean niggers, who would draw oranges and other 
fruit from inside their shirts. We had been 
warned against eating anything in Egypt that 
could not be skinned, and when we saw the nig- 
gers and where they kept their stock in trade we 
knew the reason. So far we had nothing but 
English money, and, though we had been given 
lectiures before disembarking on the values of 
Egyptian money, we had to pay liberal exchange 
to these train-side merchants. Oranges cost us 
about two cents apiece, though later on with 
Egyptian money we bought them three for a half 
piastre (three cents). The only station I remem- 
ber on this trip was because of its curious-sounding 
name, Zagizig, where we had a stroll along the 
platform and met some of our lordly Sikhs from 
India, who were all smiles when they discovered 
we were Australians. In the early dawn we dis- 
entrained at Koubbeh and after straightening 
ourselves out from having been cramped up in 
those horse-boxes, we started our march of about 
ten miles, carrying full pack, to the camp at 
Zeitoun. But here there was no arrangement 



THE LAND OF SAND AND SWEAT 79 

for our breakfast. The New Zealanders and 
Australians already camped there had only their 
own day's rations, and we had "consumed ours on 
the train. How we cursed the powers that be ! 
We had humped our eighty-pound packs those 
weary miles and when we thought we had arrived 
— no tucker ! There might have been some 
trouble; grumbling might have led to action in a 
raid on somebody's stores, but for the Y. M. C. A. 
hut. They served out hot tea and in a few mo- 
ments gnmibling gave place to "chiaching"; 
criticism that a few moments ago had been edged 
was now good-humored. Give an Australian sol- 
dier hot tea and it will pick him up quicker than 
any other drink on earth. 



CHAPTER VIII 

HELIOPOLIS 

Our camp was just outside the new city of 
Heliopolis, which was built at the cost of about 
$40,000,000 by a Belgian syndicate to rival Monte 
Carlo, but it was a fiasco as a money-making con- 
cern. Nevertheless, there were some gorgeous 
buildings, and it was a soiu-ce of constant interest 
to us. The Palace Hotel was the most magnifi- 
cent building I have ever seen; used by us as 
a hospital. There was no lack of marble, and the 
mosaics were marvellous. The lamp-stands were 
of a unique and exquisite design. The contract 
provided that the pattern should be destroyed 
after they were made, so they would not be copied. 
It was rather incongruous to see nothing but rows 
and rows of army cots, and the white-robed nurses 
flitting about in rooms that were manifestly in- 
tended for luxurious divans and the evening 
dress of fashion. Lying in those cots, one had 
but to gaze ceilingward, and forget that one was 
in a hospital. It required little imagination to 
people the rooms with the same splendor and 
fashion that fills Monte Carlo, and maybe, had 
the war not come and the gambling license been 
granted, all this barbaric splendor would have 

80 



HELIOPOLIS 8 1 

been perfumed with the scents of *' attar of roses " 
and *'Hly-of-the-valley" instead of "iodoform** 
and " carbolic." 

Another hospital was in Luna Park, which had 
been built to cater to the amusement of thousands 
of joy-seekers, but the only joy there now was 
in relief from pain. It was fun to make the 
round of the wards, for many beds were on the 
scenic railway, and you would visit one poor 
chap in a high fever, lying amid painted ice and 
snow, while another nursed his broken leg along- 
side a precipice that might well have caused it. 
I walked in to see the sights one day, and passing 
through a cave almost fell over a bed whereon 
was my own brother, whose whereabouts I had 
been trying to discover for days. Such are the 
coincidences of life. 

The streets of this town were spacious and very 
clean and were bordered by fine buildings with 
granite and marble pillars and some fine masonry 
lacework. Unfortimately, poor taste was often 
shown, with plaster alongside the marble, and the 
stone used was too soft and already in places was 
crumbling. In Egypt, where it rarely rains, the 
climate is kind to the jerry-builder, and it's only 
when Jupiter Pluvius wants a laugh and sends a 
regular tropical downpour that the buildings that 
were a thing of beauty and a joy forever come to 
earth and are no more. We ourselves were on 
one occasion victims of this god's fun. We were 



82 "OVER THERE'' 

told that it never rained, and our huts were built 
just to shelter us from the sun, but at 2 a. m. 
the grim old weather-god turned on the shower, 
and no doubt it amused him a good deal to hear 
our curses as we tried to shelter ourselves and 
tucker beneath greatcoats and water-proof sheet- 
ing. There was no chance of "getting in out of 
the rain," for there was not a water-proof shelter 
for miles. Egypt is not the only place, though, 
where the residents know least about their own 
climate ! 

Heliopolis, anyw^ay, is a skeleton of a town, for 
most of these buildings were merely occupied in 
the front, by Greek and Indian merchants who 
had anticipated our coming. In these shops any- 
thing could be bought, from a microbe (which 
was sometimes given away) to an elephant (nearly 
always a white one) ! However, there were silks 
galore and filagree-work of beauty, but the big- 
gest trade was done in colored handkerchiefs, 
crudely worked on a sewing-machine with a de- 
sign of the pyramids and "Advance AustraHa." 
The cuteness of these merchants was also evi- 
denced in the signs on their stores. The first 
Australian to stroll down those streets was amazed 
to see, in huge lettering, "The Melbourne Store," 
next door to "The Sydney Shop." They even 
knew our slang, for here was "The 'Fair Dinkum' 
Store," and across the way "Ribuck Goods." 
Prices were pretty much what you liked to pay. 



HELIOPOLIS 83 

At any rate I never failed to get an article by 
paying only a quarter of the first-named price. 

The most persistent of professionals were the 
bootblacks. You had to have your boots cleaned 
whether you liked it or not ! Stop for a moment 
to talk to a friend and there was a nigger on each 
foot, industriously brushing away as if his life 
depended on it. They would follow you on to a 
tram-car, and whether you got a seat or not there 
would be somebody working on yotu* boots two 
seconds after boarding it. Another nuisance were 
the sellers of swagger-sticks, and I have fre- 
quently bought one just for the pleasiure of lay- 
ing it across the back of its previous owner. They 
soon picked up our language and its choicest 
words, but one word they never understood was 
''No /" The first Egyptian word we learned was 
''Imshi!'' literally, **Get!"— but it generally re- 
quired the backing of a military boot to make it 
effective. The Australianese that the "Gyppos" 
picked up is not commonly used in polite society; 
maybe they thought it correct English, but it was 
sometimes very embarrassing when walking down 
the street with a niu'se. And some polite mer- 
chants were sorely puzzled when the effect of 
their well-chosen words and bow was an imin- 
tentional biting of the dust. 

We must pass a vote of thanks, however, to 
the syndicate for providing us with some ideal 
club-rooms. I guess the Y. M. C. A. never had 



84 "OVER THERE" 

such quarters before or since, and must have had 
to do some squaring of conscience in calling these 
**Army Huts." It was a hut, though, all right, 
out at the camp, made of grass mats, held to- 
gether with string, but it was the usual boon and 
blessing to men, and I guess there were few let- 
ters left camp that weren't on Red Triangle paper. 
I may as well mention here, too, that the best 
meals I had since leaving home were in the 
Y. M. C. A. building in the Esbekiah Gardens in 
Cairo, so here's a thank-you to those ladies and 
the management. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE DESERT 

I KNOW more about the desert in Egypt than 
any other part of it, for it was on the desert we 
trained. There were sham fights galore, but it 
was mostly squad and company drill, until if 
some devil had scooped out our brain-boxes and 
filled them with sawdust we could have carried 
out the orders just as well. In fact, one fellow 
must have gone mad with the monotony of it 
and perpetrated the rhyme, to the tune of "The 
Red, White, and Blue": 

"At the halt, on the left, form platoons, 
At the halt, on the left, form platoons, 
If the odd numbers don't mark time two paces, 
How the hell can the boys form platoons?" 

I don't know whether the author was ever 
found, but I know plenty that were laid out for 
singing it. We began to have a sinking feeling 
that we would not be in the real scrap at all, for 
a good part of our time was taken up in forming 
*' hollow square,'' a formation that is famous in 
the British army as having been only once broken, 
but is only of value against savages, and *'fur- 
phies" (imfoimded rumors) spread that we were 

8s 



S6 "OVER THERE" 

going into Darkest Africa or the Soudan. How- 
ever, we also practised echelon for artillery for- 
mation, that is, breaking a company into chunks 
and throwing it about at unequal distances, so 
that a shell falling on one chunk would not wipe 
any of the others off the map. Then there was 
more gloom, for that looked as if the war was 
real, and there must be something in what the 
papers were saying after all. About this time 
some of the boys' letters began to contain more 
war news even than the papers, for the padre, 
who was regimental censor, informed us that if 
he let our mail go home unpencilled there would 
be many mothers weeping at the danger their 
boys were in, as they described fierce battles in 
the desert. Even as it was, letters were published 
in home papers that showed our regiment to 
have been four times annihilated while we were 
in training ! The only shots these fellows heard 
all day were the popping of the corks in the wet 
canteen! (No charge to the "drys'* for this 
story !) 

And then, of course, we route-marched — in 
the desert, please remember; a very different 
thing, Mr. Rookie, to the same thing on made 
roads ! For one thing, we were not supposed to 
do more than fifteen miles a day, but on the des- 
ert there were no milestones, and the distance 
was ** estimated" by the officer in command. 
Some of these officers must have been city trea- 



THE DESERT 87 

siirers in private life, for their estimate of distance 
was like estimated annual expenditure, generally 
much under the mark. Mostly they would know 
when we had gone far enough, which for us was 
too far, and then we would get lost coming back. 
Fortunately, there was a lot of men camped in 
that desert, and as it is customary for a man lost 
to travel in a circle, we would generally run into 
some camp or other, otherwise I'm afraid we 
would now be a petrified army, "somewhere in 
Sahara." Ten miles with an eighty-pound pack 
on your back, through heavy sand, is as much as 
a man can endure; after that he doesn't endure, 
he just carries on, and on, and on, and on. At 
that time your company are all feet and are walk- 
ing on your brain. Anyway, the man behind 

you does actually walk on your heels every 

second step. 

In the desert, also, did we dig trenches. No, 
not the same thing as digging trenches anywhere ! 
For it is really nearly as easy to dig trenches in 
the ocean. For every spadeful you throw out 
two fall in, and if, by the use of much cunning, 
you do manage to get a hole dug, then you must 
not leave it for a single instant, for it is only wait- 
ing until your back is turned to disappear. There 
is one thing — those trenches were good cover, for 
we would no sooner occupy them than we would 
be covered up entirely. I would defy an aero- 
plane with the best "made in Germany" specta- 



88 "OVER THERE" 

cles to discover whether we were men or mum- 
mies. 

But we had one very exciting trench-digging 
expedition. We dug, if you please, into an old 
city, and broke into tombs umpteen thousand 
years old. There were scarabs and ancient jewels 
there that the Field Museum would give their 
eye-teeth for. We were ordered to deliver our 
finds to the authorities, but I am afraid many 
of the boys had ''sticky" fingers. It was all jolly 
interesting, but there is a fly in every box of oint- 
ment, and the supposed age of these relics brought 
home to us the fact that this soil had been Hved 
on for thousands of years by people much like 
our present neighbors, without any sanitary ideas ; 
and one of our fellows with a scientific mind pic- 
tured to us every grain of sand as being a globe 
inhabited by germs. This was comforting, for 
we each of us swallowed a few billion of these 
"universes" every day! They got in our eyes, 
in our ears, in our nose and mouth, but if they 
got into a cut by any chance, then we were sub- 
jects for the doctor. **0h Egypt, thou land of 
teeming life, how healthy wouldst thou be if 
you weren't so overcrowded!" 

Yet there was beauty in the desert. We would 
frequently pick up agates, sapphires, and tur- 
quoise matrix. But its beauty was chiefly sug- 
gestive. There were gorgeous sunsets — poetry 
there, but more poetry still in the wonderful 



THE DESERT 89 

mirages. Why, here, hung above the earth, were 
scenes from every age: Cleopatra's galleys, Alex- 
ander's legions, the pomp of the Mamelukes, 
Ptolemy and Pompey, Napoleon and Gordon — 
their times and deeds were all pictured here. 
Perhaps the spirit world has its "movies,'* and 
only here in the desert mirage is the "screen'* 
of stuff that can be seen with mortal eyes. 

But beauty is not for soldiers — the desert was 
our "schoolmaster." It was the right-hand man 
of Kitchener, and well did it perform its task of 
putting iron into oiu- spirits and ttuning our 
muscles into steel, and making us fit for whatever 
job the Maker of Armies had for us. He knew 
the place to train us — where the weaklings would 
fall and only the very fit survive. Any soldier 
who passed through his grades in the "academy 
of the desert" might not shine in a guard of honor 
to a princess; his skin would be blistered, his 
clothes would be stained, but he'd be the equal in 
strength of any man on earth, and would have 
fought the attacks of every known disease. It 
was Egypt and the desert that made Gallipoli 
possible, and the Australian army owes much to 
the astuteness of Kitchener, who knew the ideal 
training-groimd for the daredevil freeman from 
'Mown under." 



CHAPTER X 

PICKETING IN CAIRO 

No man in the British Empire knew Egypt 
better than Lord Kitchener, and he had very good 
reasons, apart from training, in sending us there. 
There can be no doubt whatever that the majority 
of the Egyptians were pro-Turkish if not pro- 
German. The educated Egyptian, like the Babu 
in Bengal, is specially fitted by nature for intrigue, 
and if he sees a chance to oppose whatever govern- 
ment is in power and keep his own skin, it is his 
idea of living well. Egypt was immediately put 
under martial law, but there was plenty of scope 
for a while for the midnight assassin and the 
poisoner. Here and there soldiers would dis- 
appear and street riots would be started by the 
wind. Who would not turn round on seeing an 
R. S. V. P. eye in a face whose veil enhanced the 
beauty it did not hide? But there would always 
be some sedition-monger to immediately fill the 
street with a thousand yelling maniacs who would 
scream that their religion had been insulted by 
the accursed infidels. Religion they knew nothing 
about, but to make trouble was their meat and 
drink. There was a good deal of Irish blood 
among us, and many men who would rather fight 

90 



PICKETING IN CAIRO 91 

than go to the opera, so there were some good old 
ding-dong scraps. Of course the *'Gyppo" is 
no fighter, but he can stand behind and throw 
stones and can't resist plunging the knife into an 
inviting back, so sometimes our boys would get 
laid out. A street row is always a dangerous 
thing, for those in front cry "Back!" and those 
behind cry ''Forward!" and there is likely to be 
a jam in which the innocent, if there are any, get 
hurt. I saw a pretty ugly-looking crowd dis- 
persed with a characteristic Australian weapon. 
Firing over their heads had no effect, nor threats 
of a bayonet charge, but when two Australian 
bushmen began plying stockwhips, those niggers 
made themselves scarcer than mice on the smell 
of a cat. As a good manipulator of the stockwhip 
can pull the cork from a bottle, maybe these 
plotters were afraid of having their guilty secrets 
picked from them. At any rate, there were some 
who lost fiesh in a part that would insure them 
having a smaller following thereafter. 

There was a battle fought in Cairo for which 
there will be no medals distributed and to which 
stay-at-home Australians think there is no honor 
attached, but I doubt if any one who took part in 
the battle of the Wasir, except maybe the military 
police, are ashamed of what they did. Any one 
who knows Cairo knows that there is a part of 
it that is not mentionable at dinner-table. It is 
the sink of the world. Every large city has its 



92 "OVER THERE'* 

sore, but Cairo has an ulcer. This vile spot made 
the clean lads from the wind-swept plains and 
scented bush of Australia absolutely sick. The 
Australian is a practical idealist, and for him to see 
dirt is to want to remove it. Besides which, this 
place was a nest of spies and enemies. There 
were several of our boys who disappeared, and, 
though it may be said they had no right there, 
the sign *'No Admittance" is one that the aver- 
age Australian has never been able to read. It 
was one of those scraps that no one starts but that 
breaks out of itself, because it has been brewing 
so long. There were a few thousand of the boys 
in Cairo that night, and when the news spread 
it did not take long for more to come in from 
Mcna and other camps. They did not wait for the 
motorman to start his car, but in many cases 
commandeered it for the time being. Things 
moved quite warmly for an hour or two: ladies of 
low degree scuttled like rats and panders dashed 
for safety, while "owners" in princely motor- 
cars turned almost as white as their livers as they 
saw their * 'warehouses of virtue" going up in 
flame. Two incidents are very vivid — the sight 
of a grand piano tumbling out of a five-story 
window and one of the aforesaid "owners" trying 
to remonstrate with the avengers, and having his 
car rim into the fire. The military police tried to 
interfere early in the game, but only made matters 
worse, as they were pretty well hated by the boys 



PICKETING IN CAIRO 93 

as being mostly slackers. The attitude of many 
of the officers may be judged from Jerry. He 
was looking on smoking a pipe when an English 
major dashed up to him, very apoplectic. **Are 
you an Australian officer?'* **Ye — es!" drawled 
Jerry. *'Well, why don't you take your men in 
hand?" *' Can't see they are doing any harm!" 
said Jerry. In the end strong-armed guards were 
brought in from the camps, and as the boys were 
just about tired anyway of their self-appointed 
policemanship, things soon quieted down. There 
were rumors that it cost the Australian Govern- 
ment a tidy sum of money, but the burning of 
those pest-houses must have risen like incense 
to heaven, and one very good effect it had, about 
which there will be no dispute — it put the fear of 
God into the Gyppo, and Australian soldiers after 
that even singly and in small groups received 
nothing worse than black looks. 

After this Cairo was very thoroughly picketed 
— the streets were patrolled all night by parties 
of ten or a dozen under an N. C. O. I was in 
charge of one of these parties for a couple of 
months and had a good deal of fun playing 
** policeman" among the cosmopolitan crowds 
that infest Cairo. We were only armed with the 
handles of our intrenching tools, which were 
sticks of hardwood about twelve inches long 
with an iron band at the upper end, but they 
made very effective batons. I remember once 



94 "OVER THERE'' 

we had to settle a dispute at a wedding-feast. I 
suppose there must have been a lack of room in 
the house, for the meal was spread in the street — 
long tables with a couple of hundred guests 
seated at them right in the way of the traffic. We 
strolled past a couple of times, but as we had no 
instructions to prevent folk using the public 
street for their domestic affairs, we saw no call 
to interfere, but our mouths watered at the sight 
of the good things to eat, and we thought it rather 
a tempting of Providence to spread this abundance 
of food in the open street of a city where there 
are always about a million of people who had not 
enough to eat at any time. We had only gone a 
couple of blocks away when some wildly excited 
niggers rushed after us and informed us: "Plenty 
men kill 'um back there !" We went back at the 
double and there was as ugly a riot as ever Irish- 
man longed for. There seemed to be a couple of 
thousand yelling maniacs packing both sides of 
the street. Our instructions were to prevent 
the gathering of crowds. There were only ten of 
us and we had but our improvised batons, but I 
told the boys to get into the crowd and tell them 
once to "imshi" (get) and then hit. **Be sure 
and never speak twice.'* We soon dispersed the 
crowd. There was something about our "Nulla- 
nullas"* that looked very businesslike, and none 
stopped to argue the point. 

* Australian native weapon. 



PICKETING IN CAIRO 95 

Sometimes the boys were pretty thirsty in those 
long tramps through the streets, and the open 
cafes were very inviting. But we had an ex- 
perience that warned me against allowing any of 
them to go in and get a drink. One of them 
had certainly not been gone more than a couple 
of minutes, and he swears he only had one drink; 
nevertheless, he had to be put in a cab and sent 
back to the barracks. We had pretty dull times 
in those barracks — the Kasr-el-nile just alongside 
the bridge of the same name. The chief amuse- 
ment was to feed the hawks that all day hovered 
in the courtyard. We would drop pieces of meat 
and bread from the balcony, but so quick were the 
birds that I never knew a piece to reach the ground. 

Jerry was one of the officers of the picket, 
and we had to report to him at midnight at a 
shelter in a part of the city with an evil reputa- 
tion. From here we would issue in force to close 
for the night the various dens of iniquity. Jerry 
would generally stroll ahead with his cane and 
walk into the resort of the worst ruffians on earth 
with all the assurance of a general at the head of 
a brigade. He would announce to these, the most 
lawless men and women in the world, that it was 
time to close up, and there was something in his 
bearing that commanded prompt obedience. 

In fact, nothing ever ruffled Jerry. One night 
a senior officer attached to the commandant came 
down in a tearing rage, and began to dress Jerry 



96 "OVER THERE" 

down for having presumed to close up a certain 
gambling resort without consulting the authorities. 
After about twenty minutes' harangue in which he 
threatened Jerry with all manner of punishment, 
he collapsed at the drawled retort: ''And then 
you'll wake up !" 

Jerry was still on the picket when I left to go 
down to the Suez Canal defenses, and I did not 
hear any more about him until I met him in 
Melbourne a few weeks ago, when I asked him 
if he had been over to France, and his reply was : 
*'No. I — I came back." No explanation as to 
whether he was invalided or wounded. Jerry was 
quite equal to telling a field-marshal to go to a 
place even warmer than Egypt. Maybe his ex- 
traordinary self-assurance got on the nerves of 
some general so much that to protect himself 
from those critical eyes he had to send Jerry home. 

The two principal hotels in Cairo, Shepheard's 
and the Continental, were out of bounds to all 
but officers. Some of our boys resented this dis- 
crimination while not on parade, for many of 
the privates were, in social Hfe, in higher standing 
than the majority of the officers. There was one 
of our colonels who took his brother in to dine 
with him at Shepheard's. A snobbish English 
officer came up to this man who happened to be 
only a private, and said: ''What are you doing 
in here, my man?" But he got rather a set- 
back when the Australian colonel said to him: 



PICKETING IN CAIRO 97 

** Captain, let me introduce my brother." There 
was another Australian private whom an English 
officer objected to have sitting at the same table 
with him at the Trocadero in London. Next day 
this private reserved every seat in this swell 
restaurant and provided dinner for several hun- 
dred of his chums, putting a notice on the door: 
"No Officers Admitted." Another illustration 
of snobbishness, this time in Australia, was when 
some officers at a race-meeting instructed the com- 
mittee to refuse admittance to the saddling pad- 
dock and grand stand to all privates and N. C. O.'s, 
but they looked pretty small when informed that 
the owner of the race-course was a private and 
could hardly be debarred from his own property. 
Few Australian officers are of this type, however, 
and in the trenches our officers and men are a 
happy family. When the men realize that an 
officer knows his job and has plenty of pluck, 
they will follow him through hell. 

A favorite rendezvous in Cairo was the Ezbe- 
kiah Gardens of a Sunday afternoon. There 
were beauties there from many nations, dressed 
in the "dernier cri" of fashion, who were tickled 
to death to be escorted by the bronzed giants 
from "down-under," and though one failed some- 
times to find words that were understood, yet 
sufficient was said in glance and shrug to make a 
very interesting conversation. And the Sultan's 
band was always there to fill in pauses and, in 



98 "OVER THERE 



i> 



fact, played so well as to be an encouragement to 
flirtations that were delightful in spite of differ- 
ences of nationality. 

There was always plenty to see around Cairo, 
and the education of the Australian bushman has 
been widened considerably through those months 
in Egypt, though I am afraid some of us swallowed 
the yarns of the guides and garnered a vast store 
of misinformation. These guides were a set of 
blackmailers, but once you had engaged one he 
looked on you as his personal property, and would 
let no one rob you but himself. I would like, 
even now, to have within reach of my boot the 
old scoundrel who took me inside the Great 
Pyramid. After following him in and by the 
light of a candle climbing very carefully in stock- 
inged feet the granite passage (polished by millions 
of toes imtil it was as slippery as glass), the old 
ruffian led me into the Queen's chamber, and then 
announced that he had lost his candle but would 
show me the height of the chamber by burning 
magnesian wire for the price of one piastre (five 
cents) per second. After I had a good flash-light 
view of the inside of this room, and marvelled 
sufficiently at the enormous size of the blocks of 
marble in the walls and out of which the sar- 
cophagus was made, the old son of a thief told 
me it would be at the same rate that he would 
light my way to the outside air again. I only 
had stockinged feet, and made the foolish mistake 



PICKETING IN CAIRO 99 

of striking out in the dark. The old boy howled, 
but I verily believe that I very neariy displaced 
one of the eighty-ton blocks of marble. We ar- 
rived at the opening at the same moment and I 
got a "full-Nelson" on the greasy blackguard. 
He handed over the magnesian wire, also the can- 
dle, and was quite willing to give me as many of 
his wives as I required before I released him. I 
have never been in any place as hot as the inside 
of the Great Pyramid, and no longer wonder that 
a mummy is so dried up. For in five minutes 
pretty nearly every drop of moisture in my own 
body came out through the pores of my skin. 

I also was barmy enough to climb to the top 
of the Great Pyramid; each separate block of 
stone to be surmounted was like the wall of a 
house, but the view from the top was worth while, 
and might have been enjoyed but for the thought 
of getting down again; especially as old Job (my 
new guide) persisted in telling me about several 
people who had been killed, bouncing all the way 
to the bottom. I did pretty well all the tourist 
stunts in Egypt. I rode a donkey when my feet 
touched the ground on either side, also mounted 
a camel that lifted me to a dizzy height. I gazed 
into the imperturbable face of the Sphinx and 
wandered among the numerous pyramids of Sak- 
kara. I visited the tombs of the Mamelukes 
and feasted on the beauty of the mosques (hav- 
ing my feet shod with the provided sandals so 



loo "OVER THERE" 

that my infidel dust might not defame the hal- 
lowed floor). I also viewed the citadel; but the 
place of most charm was the streets of old Cairo. 
I was never tired of elbowing my way through the 
bazaars and it was worth it to buy something 
you didn't want for the sake of being waited on 
by "Abraham in the flesh." Here was the 
Arabian Nights in very reality, and all the ro- 
mance and lure of a thousand dreams. The smell 
was a bit overpowering, but bearable if you sur- 
rounded yourself with the smell of your favorite 
tobacco. 



fl 



CHAPTER XI 
"NIPPER'' 

On the sheep and cattle station of Wyaga in 
southwestern Queensland there is a shepherd's 
hut about fifty miles from the homestead. 

One night my father was camping in this hut, 
and before lying down had piled a lot of dry dung 
on the fire outside so that the smoke would drive 
away the mosquitoes. Somewhere about mid- 
night he woke with the sense of some himian 
being near him. Then he was startled to see the 
fire scattered before his eyes, but never found 
sight nor sound of anything living. 

Many months later he again visited the hut. 
This time it was occupied by old Mullins, the 
shepherd. Again about midnight he was roused, 
this time by the whining of the sheep-dog "Nip- 
per.*' Every hair on the dog was bristling, but 
he made no attempt to attack whatever it was 
he saw. Suddenly the fire was again scattered. 
The old shepherd said that this happened about 
once a month, and that on one occasion he had 
seen a woman kick the fire apart and then dis- 
appear. 

To the railway-station at Goondiwindi came 
Mullins one day in December, 1914, and bought 

lOI 



I02 **OVER THERE '» 

tickets to Brisbane for himself and Nipper. 
The regulations of the Queensland government 
railways will not allow dogs to travel in pas- 
sengers' carriages. As Nipper had to travel in 
a dog-box at the end of the guard's van, old Mul- 
lins insisted on occupying a seat in the van, and 
at every station would get his friend a drink. 

When the train stopped for meals at mid- 
day and evening Mullins would seize the plate 
served to him and make for the door. The man- 
ager of the refreshment-room made him pay for 
the plate before taking it outside, not trusting his 
looks, but the old shepherd only wanted to have 
Nipper's himger satisfied before his own. At the 
end of the journey there were several china plates 
in the box that were of no further use to either 
of them. 

The recruiting-officer in Brisbane was not sur- 
prised to see a weather-beaten old "bushie" walk 
into the depot, for there were many such seeking 
to join the young lads in "this ding-dong scrap.'* 
It was only too evident that he was well over the 
age limit, but when they told him he was too old, 
he offered to fight them singly or collectively, or 
take on the best fighter their blank-blank army 
could produce. They managed to get him out- 
side the door, but not before both he and Nipper 
had left behind them proof of their quality in lost 
skin and torn clothes. 

Some days later old Mullins appeared again, 



" NIPPER " 103 

leading Nipper on a chain. Almost every one 
entrenched himself behind a table, but the old 
man had no fight in him, declaring in a chok- 
ing voice that Nipper had come to enlist alone. 
*'He is not too old, anyway, and will deal with 
more of the blank-blank swine than a hundred of 
your sissy, white-faced, un weaned kids!" One 
of the doctors had a heart in the right place and 
wrote a letter to the commandant of a regiment 
soon going overseas, asking him if he could not 
take the dog as a regimental pet. He gave the 
old man the letter and told him to take his dog 
out to the camp. 

The colonel was not without understanding, 
and that is how Nipper "joined up" to fight for 
democracy. 

There were some who started out to teach 
Nipper tricks, but it was soon discovered that 
he knew a good deal more than most of us. He 
had a keen sense of humor, and after some one 
would spend hours trying to teach him to sit up, 
aU of which time he would pretend he could not 
understand what he was wanted to do, with a 
sly look he would suddenly go through a whole 
repertoire of tricks, not merely sitting up, but 
tumbling over backward, generally ending the 
performance by "heeling-up" (nipping in the 
heel) all and sundry. He never really bit any one, 
but a lot of the new boys were nervous during 
this heeling-up process. 



I04 "OVER THERE" 

Nipper was certainly the most intelligent of 
the whole canine race. He was continually try- 
ing out new tricks for our amusement and was in 
ecstasy if they brought applause. On a shot 
being fired he would stretch out and pretend he 
was killed, but if you said, ' 'White Flag ! Treach- 
ery ! " he would^come to life again as savage as a 
wolf. If any one scolded him he would lie down 
and wipe his eyes with his paw, which was irre- 
sistible and turned the scolding voice into laughter. 

There was one senior officer that Nipper sus- 
pected was a German, and every chance he got 
he would sneak up and, without preliminary 
warning, take a good hold of the seat of his trous- 
ers. This major returned Nipper's dislike with 
interest, and had it not been for the protection 
of the colonel Nipper's career might have been 
cut short before we left Australia. 

Nipper never seemed to entertain much respect 
for the Army Service Corps, and sometimes he 
would attack one of their wagons with such fury 
as to clear the men off it and start the horses 
bolting. 

These were his dislikes, but his one and only 
hate was a military policeman. Perhaps he had 
a guilty conscience; but the very sight of a red- 
cap would make him foam at the mouth, and they 
sent in several requests that they might be al- 
lowed to shoot him for their own protection. The 
boys in camp had no special love for the M. P.'s 



" NIPPER " los 

either, and there was very nearly a pitched battle 
when Nipper appeared one day with two raw welts 
across his back, suspicion being immediately laid 
at their door. 

Nipper always appeared on parade, and con- 
sidered his position to be the right flank when in 
line and right ahead of everybody when in coltimn 
of route. If motor-car or horse vehicle was slow in 
giving way to us, Nipper informed them who we 
were, which was one of the few occasions on which 
he was heard to bark. At first he had some nar- 
row escapes, but soon discovered that *'heeling- 
up" a horse or the rear wheel of a moving auto- 
mobile was more risky than nipping at the heels 
of sheep or cow. 

Once our adjutant had an argtiment with the 
owner of an automobile for breaking through our 
colimin. Nipper objected to a certain remark of 
the slacker in the car, and without joining in 
the conversation leaped into the car and dragged 
out his overcoat into the mud, not reHnquishing 
it until it was well soaked. 

On board the troop-ship Nipper pined for the 
smell of the gum leaves, and it was the only time 
when we lost patience with him, for every night 
he would stand in the bow and howl. 

The smells of Egypt disgusted Nipper, remem- 
bering the scents of the AustraHan bush. Only 
once did he make the mistake of heeling-up a 
Gyppo, after which he made a great pretense of 



io6 "OVER THERE" 

being very sick. On other occasions when he 
wanted them to keep their distance, he found 
mere growhng to have the desired effect. 

The atmosphere of Egypt had a bad effect on 
Nipper's morals, and he would sometimes disap- 
pear for days. After a while the old reprobate 
acquired the disgusting habit of eating sand, 
which not only showed how far he had fallen from 
grace, but also had a serious effect on his health. 
On several occasions he had to be taken to the 
army medical tent, and only the most drastic 
remedies saved his life. 

One day the colonel read a letter he had received 
from old Mullins inquiring if Nipper was stiU alive 
and reminding us that his meat had always been 
cooked for him. It almost made one believe in 
reincarnation, for it was really uncanny, as no 
human being could more contritely express re- 
morse than did Nipper as he listened with tail 
between his legs, whining most piteously. 

He accompanied me on some scouting expedi- 
tions in the desert, but his powers were failing, and 
I never trusted him after one occasion on which 
he made a fool of me. He showed all the symp- 
toms of danger being near; and sure enough on 
looking through my glasses I saw what appeared 
to be a man with a rifle crouched behind a bush. 
I took three men with me and we made a long 
detour to approach from behind, but after all 
our precautions and alarm we found nothing but 



** NIPPER " 107 

a long stick leaning agaiast the bush and the 
shadow of a rock that looked something like a 
man. 

In the end Nipper committed suicide, and this 
was the manner of his going. He was in the habit 
of swimming across the canal every morning while 
we were at Ferry Post. This morning, however, 
one of the boys noticed him go under, and diving 
in after him was able, after some difficulty, to get 
his body ashore. He was quite stiff and we all 
of us believed that he swam out a certain dis- 
tance and gave up. 

His bearing for days indicated that something 
was preying on his mind, and as we did not know 
what cloud overshadowed his caniae soul we for- 
bore to judge him. 

His memory will remaia for long in the hearts 
of those who knew him, and we buried him in the 
binning sand of Arabia with the simple inscrip- 
tion on a pine board: 

Here Lies 

^'NIPPER'* 

Died on Active Service, 

A TRUE Comrade, — 

Sacrificed to *'0n," * 

No. 0000 — Regimental Pet — 

— TH Brigade — Heathen. 

* The Egyptian sun-god. 



io8 "OVER THERE" 

and his identification disk was sent home to old 
Mullins and maybe hangs in the old hut where, 
perhaps, the ghost walks no more and the ashes 
of the fire smoulder undisturbed. 



PART III 
GALLIPOLI 



CHAPTER XII 
THE ADVENTURE OF YOUTH 

Fate has decided that Gallipoli shall always be 
associated with the story of the Anzacs. This 
name (which is formed from the initial letters of 
the Australian New Zealand ^Irmy Corps) does 
not describe more than half the troops that were 
engaged in that fated campaign, but it has so 
caught the popular fancy, that in spite of all his- 
torians may do, injustice will be done in the 
thought of the public to the English, Scotch, and 
Irish regiments and the gallant French Colonial 
troops who played an equally heroic part. There 
were certainly no finer troops on the Peninsula — 
probably in the whole war no imit has shown 
greater courage than did the glorious Twenty- 
ninth British Division in the landing at Cape 
Helles. 

No writer who accurately pictured these mem- 
orable months of our "treading on the corns of 
the Turkish Empire" could leave out even the 
loyal dark-skinned Britishers from the Hindustani 
hills and from the Ganges. There both Gourkas 
and Sikhs added to their reputation as fighters. 

Australia and New Zealand's part does not, in 
actual accompHshment or in personal daring and 



112 "OVER THERE" 

endurance, outclass the doings of these others, 
the larger half of the army. But there is a ro- 
mance and a glow about the "Anzac" exploits 
that (rail at the injustice of it as you may) makes 
a himian-interest story that will elbow out of the 
mind of the "man in the street" what other 
troops did. In fact, every second man one meets 
has the idea that the Australians and New Zea- 
landers were the only men there. 

I don't intend to try and write the story of 
Gallipoli — I haven't the equipment or the experi- 
ence — ^John Masefield has written the only book 
that need be read, and only a man who was in 
that outstanding achievement of the landing on 
the 25 th of April has a right to the honor of asso- 
ciating his name in a chronicle of ''What I did!'' 
What I am going to attempt to do is just to pic- 
ture it as a "winning of the spurs" by the young- 
est democracy on earth. 

There was something peculiarly fitting in the 
fate that ordained that this adolescent nation of the 
South Seas should prove its fitness for manhood 
in an adventure upon which were focussed the 
eyes of all nations. The gods love romance, else 
why was the youngest nation of earth tried out 
on the oldest battlefield of history ? How those 
yotmg men from the continent whose soil had 
never been stained with blood thrilled to hear 
their padres tell them as they gathered on the 
decks of the troop-ships in the harbor of Lemnos, 



THE ADVENTURE OF YOUTH 113 

that to-morrow they would set foot almost on the 
site of the ancient battlefield of Troy, where the 
early Greeks shed their blood, as sung in the 
oldest battle-song in the world. 

These young Australians were eager to prove 
their country's worth as a breeder of men. Aus- 
tralians have been very sensitive to the criticism 
of Old World visitors — that we were a pleasure- 
loving people, who only thought of sport — that 
in our country no one took life seriously, and 
even the making of money was secondary to foot- 
ball, and that we would all rather win a hundred 
pounds on a horse-race than make a thousand by 
personal exertion. Practically every book written 
on Australia by an Englishman or an American 
has said the same thing, that we were a lovable, 
easy-going race, but did not work very hard, and 
in a serious crisis would be found wanting. 

The whole nation brooded over these young 
men, guardians of Australia's honor, and waited 
anxiously for them to wipe out this slur. That 
explains Australia's pride in "Anzac." It meant 
for us not merely our baptism in blood — it was 
more even than a victory — for there, with the 
fierce search-light of every nation turned upon it, 
our representative manhood showed no faltering 
— but proved it was of the true British breed, 
having nevertheless a bearing in battle that was 
uniquely its own. In this age of bravest men the 
Australian has an abandon in fight which on 



114 "OVER THERE" 

every battlefield marks him as different from any 
other soldier. 

There is an insidious German propaganda sug- 
gesting that the Australians are very sore at the 
failure on Gallipoli and that we blame the British 
Government and staff for having sent us to perish 
in an impossible task. I want to say, that while 
in the Australian army, as private, N. C. O. and 
officer, I never heard a single criticism of the 
government for the Gallipoli business. There is 
no man who was on the Peninsula who does not 
admire General Sir Ian Hamilton, and most of the 
officers believe that Britain has never produced 
a more brilliant general. That the expedition 
failed was not the fault of the commander-in- 
chief nor of the troops. And, anyway, we Aus- 
tralians are good enough sports to realize that 
there must be blunders here and there, and we're 
quite ready to bear our share of the occasional 
inevitable disaster. 

But Gallipoli was not the failure many people 
think. Some people seem to have the idea that a 
hundred thousand troops were intended to beat a 
couple of million, and take one of the strongest 
cities in the world. There never was a time 
when the Turks did not outnimiber us five to 
one, when they did not have an enormous re- 
serve, in men, equipment, and munitions, imme- 
diately at their back, while our base was five 
himdred miles away in Egypt. The Turks had 



THE ADVENTURE OF YOUTH 115 

a Krupp factory at Constantinople within a 
few hours of them, turning out more ammimi- 
tion per day than they were using, while ours 
had to come thousands of miles from England. 
Of course, we were never intended to take Con- 
stantinople. The expedition was a purely naval 
one, and we were a small military force, auxiliary 
to the navy, that was to seize the Narrows and 
enable the ships to get within range of Constan- 
tinople, and so compel its surrender. We failed 
in this final objective, but we accomplished a 
great deal, nevertheless. We held back probably 
a milHon Turks from the Russians, and we left, 
in actual counted dead Turkish bodies, more than 
double our own casualties (killed, wounded, and 
missing). But, above all, we definitely impressed 
the German mind with the fact that Great Britain 
did not only mean the British Isles but the equally 
loyal and brave fighters from Britain overseas. 

Here is no history of Gallipoli, but let me try 
to sketch four pictures that will show you the 
type of men that there joked with death and 
made curses sound to angel ears sweeter than the 
hymns of the soft-souled churchgoer. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE LANDING THAT COULD NOT SUCCEED 
—BUT DID 

Picture yourself on a ship that was more 
crowded with men than ever ship had been be- 
fore, in a harbor more crowded with ships than 
ever harbor had been crowded before, with more 
fears in your mind than had ever crowded into it 
before, knowing that in a few hours you would 
see battle for the first time. Having comrades 
crowding roimd, bidding you good-bye and in- 
forming you that as your regimental number 
added up to thirteen, you would be the first to 
die, remembering that you hadn't said your pray- 
ers for years, and then comforting yourself with 
the reaHzation that what is going to happen will 
happen, and that an appeal to the general will not 
stop the battle, anyway, and you may as well 
die like a man, and you will feel as did many of 
those yoimg lads, on the eve of the 25th of April, 
191 5. There was some premonition of death in 
those congregations of khaki-clad men who gath- 
ered roimd the padres on each ship and sang 
"God be with you till we meet again." You 
could see in men's faces that they knew they were 

"going west" on the morrow — ^but it was a swan- 

116 



THE LANDING 117 

song that could not paralyze the arm or daunt the 
heart of these young Greathearts, who intended 
that on this morrow they would do deeds that 
would make their mothers proud of them. 

"For if you 'as to die, 
As it sometimes 'appens, why, 
Far better die a 'ero than a skunk; 
A' doin' of yer bit." * 

As soon as church-parade was dismissed, an- 
other song was on the boards, no hymn, maybe 
not fine poetry, but the song that will be always 
associated with the story of Australia's doings in 
the great war, Australia's battle-song — ''Australia 
Will Be There" — immortalized on the Southland 
and Ballarat, as it was sung by the soldiers 
thereon, when they stood in the sea-water that 
was covering the decks of those torpedoed 
troop-ships. It was now sung by every Australian 
voice, and as those crowded troop-ships moved 
out from Lemnos they truly carried ''Australia," 
eager, imtried Australia — ^where ? 

The next day showed to the world that "Aus- 
tralia would always be there T' where the fight 
raged thickest. Her sons might sometimes pene- 
trate the enemy's territory too far, but hereafter, 
and till the war's end, they would always be in the 
front line, storming with the foremost for free- 
dom and democracy. 

* Robert W. Service. 



Ii8 "OVER THERE" 

The landing could not possibly be a surprise 
to the Turks; the British and French warships 
had advertised our coming by a preliminary bom- 
bardment weeks previously — the Greeks knew 
all about our concentration in their waters — and 
wasn't the Queen of Greece sister to the Kaiser? 

There were only about two places where we 
could possibly land, and the Turks were not merely 
warned of our intentions, but they were warned in 
plenty of time for them to prepare for us a warm 
reception. The schooling and method of the Ger- 
mans had imited with the ingenuity of the Turks 
to make those beaches the unhealthiest spots on 
the globe. The Germans plainly believed that a 
landing was impossible. 

Think of those beaches, with land and sea 
mines, densely strewn with barbed wire (even 
into deep water), with machine-guns arranged 
so that every yard of sand and water wotdd be 
swept, by direct, indirect, and cross fire, with 
a hose-like stream of bullets; think of thousands 
of field-pieces and howitzers ready, ranged, and 
set, so that they would spray the sand and whip 
the sea, merely by the pulling of triggers. Think 
of a force larger than the intended landing-party 
entrenched, with their rifles loaded and their 
range known, behind all manner of overhead 
cover and wire entanglements, and then remem- 
ber that you are one of a party that has to step 
ashore there from an open boat, and kill, or drive 



THE LANDING 119 

far enough inland, these enemy soldiers to en- 
able your stores to be landed so that when you 
have defeated him, you may not perish of starva- 
tion. Far more than at Balaclava did these 
young men from ''down under" walk "right into 
the jaws of death, into the mouth of hell!" 
And the Turks waited till they were well within 
the jaws before they opened fire. No one in 
the landing force knew where the Turks were, 
and the Turks did not fire on us until we got to 
the zone which they had so prepared that all 
might perish that entered there. They could see 
us clearly, the crowded open boats were targets 
of naked flesh that could not be missed. Was 
there ever a more favorable setting for a massacre ? 
The Turks in burning Armenian villages with 
their women and children had not easier tasks 
than that entrenched army. Our men in the 
boats were too crowded to use their rifles, and the 
boats were too close in for the supporting war- 
ships to keep down the fire from those trenches. 
How was any one left alive ? By calculation of the 
odds not one man should have set foot on that 
shore. Make a successful landing, enabling us to 
occupy a portion of that soil! What an impossi- 
ble task! 

To the men in those boats and the men watching 
from the ships, it appeared as if not merely the 
expedition had failed, but that not a man of the 
landing force would survive. Boats were riddled 



I20 "OVER THERE" 

with bullets and sunk — other boats drifted help- 
lessly as there were not enough alive to row them — 
men jtmiped into the bullet-formed spray to swim 
ashore but were caught in the barbed wire and 
drowned. Who could expect success, but it nev- 
ertheless happened ! The Turks were sure that 
we could not land, yet we did. Not only did those 
boys set foot on those beaches, but the remnant 
of that landing-party drove the Turks out of their 
entrenchments up cliffs five hundred feet high, 
and entrenched themselves on the summit. How 
did they do it ? No one knows ; the men who were 
there don't know themselves. Did heaven inter- 
vene? Perhaps spiritual forces may sometimes 
paralyze material. It must be that right has 
physical might, else why didn't the Kaiser get to 
Paris? Mathematics and preparedness were on 
his side; by all reasoning Germany ought to have 
overwhelmed the world in a few months, with 
the superiority of her armament, but she didn't. 
The Turks ought to have kept us off the Peninsula, 
by all laws of logic and arithmetic, and they 
didn't. I really think the landing succeeded be- 
cause those boys thought they had failed. 

They must have believed themselves doomed — 
they could see that there were too few to accom- 
plish what was even doubtful when the force was 
intact. When they were on the shore they must 
have felt that it was impossible that they could 
be taken off again. All the time more were fall- 
ing, and soon it seemed that every last man must 



THE LANDING 121 

be massacred. They made up their minds that, 
at any rate, they would get a few of the swine 
before they went. Every man beHeved that in 
the end he must be killed, but determined to sell 
his life as dearly as possible, and that made them 
the supermen that could not be "held back." 
A whole platoon would be cut down, but some- 
how one or two would manage to get into the 
trench, where, of necessity, it was hand-to-hand 
work, and with laughing disregard of the odds 
would lay out a score of the enemy and send the 
others fleeing before them, who would yell out that 
they were fighting demons from hell. After the 
confusion in the boats, and from the fact that in 
most cases companies were entirely without offi- 
cers, there was no forming up for charges — indeed, 
there were no orders at all, but every man knew 
that he could not but be doing the right thing 
every time he killed a Turk, so they just took 
their rifle and bayonet in their naked hands and 
went to it. There was no line of battle, it was 
just here, there, and everywhere, khaki-clad, 
laughing demons, seeking Turks to kill. 

Never was there fighting like this. All that day 
it went on. On the beach, up the cliff, in the 
gullies, miles inland were men fighting. It was not 
a battle; it would have made a master of tactics 
weep and tear his hair, but these man-to-man 
fights kept on. Many were shot from behind, 
many were wounded and fell in places where no 
one would find them — some, fighting on, went in 



122 "OVER THERE'' 

a circle and found themselves back on the beach 
again. However, at nightfall some had begun to 
dig a shallow line of trenches, well inland across 
the cliff. Single men and small groups of them, 
not finding any more Turks where they were, 
fell back into this ditch and helped deepen it. 

Fresh Turks were massing for coimter-attack, 
and soon came on with fury, but we were some- 
thing like an army now, and although the line 
had to be shortened it never broke. The landing 
had been made good, the impossible had been 
achieved. But there were many who died strange 
deaths, many left way in, helpless, who could not 
be succored — ^many whom the fighting lust led 
so far that when they thought of seeking their 
comrades they found the barrier of a Turkish 
army now intervening. Strange, unknown duels 
and combats were fought that day. Unknown 
are the ** Bill- Jims" who killed scores with naked 
hand — there were many such. Though we beat 
the Turk with the odds in his favor, ^^et this day 
and afterward he earned our respect as a fighting 
man. 

" East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall 
meet 

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judg- 
ment Seat. 

But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor 
Birth, 

When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they come 
from the ends of the Earth." 



THE LANDING 123 

The Australian had proved himself the fiercest 
fighter of the world. ... As one naval officer re- 
marked, they fought not as men but devils. Many 
have said that much of the loss of life was need- 
less, that had the Australians kept together and 
waited for orders not so many would have been 
cut off in the bush. It was true that the im- 
petuosity of many took them too far to return, 
but it was that very quality that won the day. 
They did not return, but they drove the Turk be- 
fore them and enabled others to dig in before he 
could re-form. You would have to go back to 
mediaeval times to parallel this fighting. There 
were impetuosity, dash, initiative, berserker rage, 
fierce hand-to-hand fighting, every man his own 
general. 

These were not the only qualities of the Aus- 
tralian fighting men, but these alone could have 
succeeded on that day. When the time came for 
evacuation of those hardly won and held trenches, 
these same troops gave evidence of the posses- 
sion of the opposite attributes of coolness, silence, 
patience, co-ordination ; every man acting as part 
of a single unit, under control of a single will — 
which is discipline ! 



CHAPTER XIV 
HOLDING ON AND NIBBLING 

There are people who think that the AustraHan 
dash petered out with that one supreme effort of 
landing. We had achieved the impossible in 
landing — why did we not in the many months 
we were there, do the comparatively easy thing 
and advance? Surely, now that we had stores 
and equipment and artillery, we could more 
easily drive the Turks out of their trenches. 
So many seem to think that so much was done 
on that first day, and so little thereafter. 

But the Peninsula is not a story of mere impetu- 
osity and dash, it is a story of endurance as well. 
As a matter of fact, those eight months of holding 
on were as great a miracle as the landing. There 
is a limit to the physical powers even of supermen. 
These men were not content with the small strip 
of ground that they held, and they did attack and 
defeat the Turks opposing them again and again, 
but as soon as a Turkish army was beaten there 
was ever another fresh one to take its place. The 
Turks could not attack us at one time with an 
army outnumbering us by ten to one, not because 
they had not the troops, but because there was 

not room enough. As a matter of fact, that little 

124 



HOLDING ON AND NIBBLING 125 

army (only reinforced enough to fill up the gaps) 
defeated five Turkish armies, each one larger than 
its own. Remember, too, that the Turks were 
always better equipped and supplied — it was so 
easy with their chief city of Constantinople just 
within ''coo-ee." Oiu* little army had to be sup- 
plied with every single thing over thousands of 
miles of water. General Hamilton said the navy 
was father and mother to us, and when it is remem- 
bered that every cartridge, every ounce of food, 
every drop of water, ever}^ splinter of firewood 
had to be brought by the ships, it will be seen that 
we could not have existed a single day without 
their aid. The Turks said often enough that 
they would push us into the sea — they continually 
called on Allah to aid them — we were only a 
handful after all; we only held a few hundred 
acres of their filthy soil, but onto that we clung, 
sometimes by the skin of our teeth. And it was 
the weather, not the Turks, that made us leave in 
the end. 

Ever and anon we alarmed the Turk by nib- 
bling a piece nearer to his sacred city. Never 
did men live imder worse conditions than in 
those eight months of hell, yet never was an 
army so cheerful. '' Bill- Jim, ' ' which is Australia's 
name for her soldier-boy, always makes the best 
of things, and soon made himself at home on 
that inhospitable shore. 

The first thing he decided needed alteration 



126 "OVER THERE 



»> 



was his uniform. Breeches and puttees were not 
only too hot but they closed in the leg and af- 
forded cover to the lively little fellow who lives 
indiscriminately on the soldiers of both sides. 
As each soldier began to trim his uniform to his 
own idea of comfort, it was soon, in very reality, 
a "ragtime" army. Some felt that puttees were 
a nuisance — everybody realized that the breeches 
were too long, but differed on the point as to 
how much too long. Some would clip off six 
inches from the end, others a foot, and others 
would have been as well covered without the 
article at all. Almost everybody decided that 
a tunic was useless, but some extremists threw 
away shirt and singlet as well. A Turkish army 
order was captured which stated that the Aus- 
tralians were running short of supplies, as they 
made one pair of trousers do for three men. 
Evidently Johnny Turk could not understand 
the Australian disregard for conventionality and 
his taking to nakedness when it meant comfort 
and there were no women within hundreds of 
miles to make him conscious of indecency. 
Clothes that couldn't be washed wouldn't keep 
one's body clean and became the home of an 
army that had no interest in the fight for de- 
mocracy. The Australian showed his practical 
common sense in discarding as much as possible — 
but, say, those boys would have caused some 
amusement if drawn up for review ! 



HOLDING ON AND NIBBLING 127 

Water was certainly the most precious thing. 
There never was enough to drink, but even then 
there are always men who would rather wash than 
drink, and to see these men having their bath in 
a jam-tin just showed how habit is, in many of us, 
stronger than common sense, for there was never 
water enough to more than spread out the dirt or 
liquify it so that it would fill up the pores. Others 
who must bathe adopted a more effective but more 
dangerous proceeding. Of cotuse, the sea was 
there — surely plenty of water for washing ! Just 
so, but this bath was pretty unhealthy, for it was 
practically always whipped by shrapnel and 
you went in at the risk of your life. Some of the 
best swimmers used to say it was all right so 
long as you dived whenever you heard the screech 
of a shell — that the shrapnel pellets did not pene- 
.trate the water more than a few inches. Most 
men did without either of this choice of baths, 
and used a scraper. It was evidenced on the 
Peninsula that one of the greatest of civilizers is 
a razor. By necessity few could shave, and you 
soon could not recognize the face of your best 
chimi as it hid itself beneath a growth of some 
reddish fimgus. Really handsome features were 
quite blotted out, and it is now evident to me 
why, in civilized life, we all so gladly go through 
the conventional daily torture of face-scraping. 

Thirst is not a thing to joke about, however, 
and there were times when the allowance of water 



128 *'OVER THERE" 

was not enough to wash down a half-dozen bites, 
and the food would stick in one's throat. 

There was generally enough food but mighty 
little variety except just before the evacuation 
when stores had to be eaten to save them being 
taken away or destroyed. It is all very well to 
say a man will eat anything when he is hungry, 
but you can get so tired of bully -beef and biscuits 
and marmalade-jam that your stomach simply 
will not digest it. Machonochie's, which was a 
sort of canned Irish stew, wasn't bad, but there 
wasn't always more than enough of that to sup- 
ply the quartermasters. Still there were some 
great chefs on the Peninsula, men who had got 
their training as cooks in shearers' camps, where 
anything badly cooked would be thrown at their 
heads. It was marvellous how some of them could 
disguise a bully-beef stew, and I have been told 
of men coming to blows over the merits of their 
respective ''company cooks." 

There were more flies on the Peninsula than 
there was sand on the shore, and they fought us 
persistently for every atom of food. Getting a 
meal was a hard day's work, for all the time you 
had to fight away the swarms, and no matter how 
quick you were with your fork, you rarely got a 
mouthful that hadn't been well walked over, and 
it didn't do to think where those flies might have 
been walking just previously. No army ever had 
a better directed sanitary department, but, no 



HOLDING ON AND NIBBLING 129 

matter how clean we kept our trenches, the Turks 
just "loved" dirt and "worshipped" flies, and 
their trenches were only ten yards away in one 
place, and in no place were they far enough to 
make it a record-breaking aerial flight for a fly. 
Perhaps it was because they were all Turkish- 
bred that the flies did us so much harm, for they 
certainly accounted for more deaths than the shells 
or bullets. Dysentery was rife all the time and 
there were times when not one man was well. 
If the doctors had known enough they would 
have put a barrage of disinfectant in front of our 
trenches. We put up sandbags to stop the bullets, 
but no one had devised a method to stop those 
winged emissaries of death. Those who died 
from lead-poisoning were but a score to the hun- 
dreds who died of fly-poisoning. 

This is but a little of what holding on meant to 
that little force. The Turk was not only a brave, 
but a "wily" fighter — snipers were always giv- 
ing trouble, and one never knew from which di- 
rection the next shot was coming. Men with 
"nerves" declared that our line must be full of 
spies — sometimes a shot would come through the 
door of a dugout facing out to sea. These snipers 
were certainly brave fellows — some were foimd 
covered with leaves — one was found in a cleft in 
the rock where he must have been lowered by his 
comrades and he could not get out without their 
help. In the early days some of the Turk- 



I30 "OVER THERE 



>> 



ish officers who could talk English even took 
the extreme risk of mixing among the troops and 
passing false orders. One of these spies was only 
discovered through misuse of a well-known Aus- 
tralian slang-word. No one in the Australian 
army but knows the meaning of "dinkum." Its 
meaning is something the same as the American 
**on the level!" and is probably the commonest 
word in the Australian soldier's vocabulary. He 
will ask: *'Is that dinkimi news?" State that, 
*'He's a dinkum fellow!" and so on. Well, one 
day a man in an Australian officer's imiform 
spoke to some officers in a certain sector of 
trench, and said he brought a message from head- 
quarters. He was getting a lot of information 
and seemed to know several officers' names, but 
he bungled over one of them, and on the officer 
he was speaking to inquiring, *'Is that dinkum?" 
he answered: "Yes, thafs his name!" There 
was no further investigation, he was shot dead 
on the spot. The officer who did it may have been 
hasty, but there can be no doubt that justice was 
done, for he must have been either a Turk or a 
German and had already found out too much. 



CHAPTER XV 
THE EVACUATION . 

Without warning, winter came down upon us. 
No one guessed he was so near. We were still 
in our summer lack of clothing, and were not 
prepared for cold weather, when like a wolf on 
the fold the blizzard came down upon us. This 
was the worst enemy those battered troops had 
yet encountered. Hardly any of those boys had 
ever seen snow and now they were naked in the 
bitterest cold. There were more cases of frost- 
bite than there were of wounds in the whole 
campaign. More had their toes and fingers eaten 
off by Jack Frost than shells had amputated. 
In those open, unprotected trenches, in misery 
such as they had never dreamed could be, the 
lads from sunny Australia stood to their posts. 
When the snow melted the trenches fell in and 
Turk and Anzac stood exposed to each other's 
fire, but both were fighting a common enemy and 
so hard went this battle with them as to com- 
pel a truce in the fight of man against man. 

Soon it was evident that our final objective of 
capturing the Narrows could not be accomplished 
with the forces we had. Directly the winter gales 
would arrive and on those exposed beaches no 

131 



132 "OVER THERE" 

stores could be landed. We had to leave and leave 
quickly, or starve to death. So the evacuation 
was planned. 

No achievement in military history was better 
conceived or more faithfully carried out. Here 
was scope for inventive genius and many were the 
devices used to bluff the Turk. We schooled him 
in getting used to long periods of silence. At first 
he was pretty jumpy and could not understand 
the change, when the men who had always given 
him two for one now received his fire without 
retaliating. After a while he decided that as we 
were quite mad there was no accounting for our 
behavior. Then we scared him some more by 
appearing to land fresh troops. As a matter of 
fact, a thousand or so would leave the beach at 
night and a few himdred return in the daylight 
under the eyes of the Turkish aeroplanes, causing 
them to report concentration of more troops. 
Stores were taken out to the ships by night, and 
the empty boxes brought back and stacked on the 
beaches during the day. It must have appeared 
as if we were laying in for the winter. 

There were many inventive brains of high qual- 
ity working at great pressure during all the days 
of holding on, but one of the cleverest ideas put 
into operation was the arrangement devised by an 
engineer whereby rifles were firing automatically 
in the front-line trenches after every man had 
left. There is no doubt the Turks were com- 



THE EVACUATION 133 

pletely bluffed. When the remaining stores were 
fired after being well soaked with gasolene, the 
Tiirkish artillery evidently thought they had made 
a lucky hit and they poured shells into the flames 
and completed for us the work of destruction. 
I doubt if they even found the name of a Chicago 
packing-house on a bully-beef case, when next 
day they wandered curiously through the aban- 
doned settlement that for many months had been 
peopled by the bronzed giants from farthest south. 

The last men to leave the actual trenches were 
the remnant of the heroic band that were the first 
to land. They requested the honor of this post 
of danger and it could not be refused them. They 
must have expected that their small company 
would be still further thinned; but this place of 
miracles still had another in store, as the evacua- 
tion was accomplished from Anzac itself without 
a casualty. 

The last party to leave the beach was a hospital 
unit — chaplain, doctors, and orderlies. It was in- 
tended that they should remain to care for the 
wounded, though they would necessarily fall into 
the hands of the Turks. It was not feared that 
they would be ill-treated, for all the reports we 
had of prisoners in the hands of the Turks went to 
show that they were well cared for. In this as in 
other respects the Turk showed himself to be 
much more civilized than the German. It was a 
pleasant surprise to be able to greet again these 



134 "OVER THERE" 

comrades, who but a few minutes before we had 
commiserated on their hard luck; for they came 
off in the last boats, there being no wounded to 
require their services. The padre, who was a 
Roman Catholic priest, said that he missed the 
chance of a lifetime and would now probably 
never know what the inside of a harem was like ! 

They were sad hearts that looked back to those 
fading shores. It almost seem.ed as if we were 
giving up a bit of Australia to the enemy. Those 
acres had been taken possession of by Australian 
courage, baptized with the best of the country's 
blood, and now held the sacred dust of the great- 
est of our citizens, whose title to suffrage had 
been purchased by the last supreme sacrifice. 
Never were men asked to do a harder thing than 
this — to leave the bones of their comrades to fall 
into alien hands. These were men white of face 
and with clenched fists that filed past those wooden 
crosses and few who did not feel shame at the 
desertion. Some there were who whispered to 
the spirits hovering near an appeal for under- 
standing and forgiveness. They wondered how 
the worshippers of the Crescent would treat the 
dead resting beneath the symbols that to them 
represented an accursed infidel faith. There are 
cravens in Australia who suggest that she has done 
more than her share in this struggle, but while one 
foot of soil that has been hallowed by Australian 
blood remains in the hands of the enemy the man 



THE EVACUATION 135 

who would withhold one man or one shilling is 
not only no true Australian but no true man — a 
dastard and a traitor. 

When peace shall dawn and the Turk shall heed 
the voice of United Democracy as it proclaims 
with force, ''Thou shalt not oppress, nor shalt 
thou close the gates of these straits again !" then 
shall visitors from many lands wander through 
these trenches and marvel what kind of men were 
they that held them for so long against such 
odds, and gaze at the honeycombed cliff where 
twentieth-century men lived like cave-dwellers, 
and sang and joked more than the abiders in 
halls of luxury. 

To-day the name Anzac is the envy of all other 
soldiers, and while none would want to live that 
life again, every man who was there rejoices in 
the memory of the association and comradeship 
of those days. Read the "Anzac Book" and you 
will see that there was much talent and many 
a spark of genius in that army. But only those 
who were there know of the many busy brains 
that worked overtime devising improvements in 
the weapons that were available, and ever seeking 
to invent contrivances that added to comfort. 
Many of the inventions are forgotten, but some are 
in use in France to-day, notably the "periscope 
rifle " or " sniperscope ' ' and the ' ' thumb periscope' ' 
which is no thicker than a man's finger. It was 
found that our box-periscopes were always being 



136 "OVER THERE" 

smashed by the Turkish snipers ; so one ingenious 
brain collared an officer's cane and scooped 
out the centre. With tiny mirrors top and bot- 
tom, it was a very effective periscope, and soon 
most officers were minus their canes. Some very 
good bombs were made from jam-tins with a wad 
of guncotton, and filled up with all manner of 
missiles. These improvised bombs were risky to 
handle, and some men lost their lives through 
carelessness, though probably there were nearly 
as many accidents through over caution. They 
would generally be provided with a five-second 
fuse, and you were supposed to swing three times 
before throwing. Some men who had not much 
faith in the time-fuse threw the bombs as soon as 
the spark struck, which gave the Turks time to 
return them. Both sides played this game of 
catch, but I think we were the better at it. The 
way of lighting the fuse was to hold the head of a 
match on the powder stream, drawing the friction- 
paper across it. This generally caught imme- 
diately, but after a while some one introduced 
the idea of having burning sticks in the trench, 
and a "torchman" would pass down the trench 
lighting each fuse. One man was not sure that 
the spark had caught and began blowing on it 
and was surprised when it blew his hand off. We 
would drop on top of the Turks' bombs a coat or 
sand-bag, and it was surprising how little damage 
was done. If you put a sheet of iron on top of 



THE EVACUATION 137 

one, or a sand-bag full of earth, it would make 
the explosion very much worse, but loose cloth 
would spread out and make a spring-cushion by- 
compression of the air above. 

There was another use made of empty jam-tins : 
they were tied to our barbed wire so that if any 
Turk tried to get through he would make a noise 
like the cowbells at milking-time. Talking about 
barbed wire, Johnny Turk played a huge joke on 
us on one occasion. As the staking down of wire 
was too risky, we prepared some *' knife-rests" 
(hedges of wire shaped like a knife rest) and 
rolled them over our parapet, but opened otu: eyes 
in amazement to find in the morning that they had 
only stopped a few feet from the Turkish trenches. 
The Turks had sneaked out and tied ropes to 
them and hauled them over to protect them- 
selves. Thereafter we took care to let Abdul do 
his own wiring. 



CHAPTER XVI 

"SHIPS THAT PASS . . ." 

Although we did not capture the Narrows 
(that narrow stream of water through which a 
current runs so swiftly that floating mines are 
carried down into it faster than the mine-sweepers 
could gather them up), this did not prevent at 
least one representative of the navy from passing 
that barrier. This was the Australian submarine, 
A2 . It may not be generally known that Australia 
had two submarines at the outbreak of war. 
These would appear antediluvian alongside the 
latest underwater monster, but, nevertheless, one 
of these accomplished a feat such as no German 
submarine has ever approached. The first of 
our submarines met an unknown fate as it dis- 
appeared somewhere near New Guinea. There 
has been much speculation as to what happened 
to it, but its size can be guessed at when I mention 
that a naval officer told me he thought it probable 
that a shark had eaten it. A2 was the same type, 
but it achieved lasting fame in that it passed 
under the mine-field, through the Narrows, across 
the Sea of Marmora, and into the port of Constan- 
tinople. Right between the teeth of the Turkish 

138 



" SHIPS THAT PASS . . ." 139 

forts and fleet it sank seven Turkish troop-ships 
and returned safely. A certain town in Australia 
that was called ' ' Germanton " has been re- 
christened ' ' Holbrook ' ' in honor of the commander 
of this gallant little craft. 



Every one has heard the story of the destruc- 
tion of the Emden by the Australian cruiser 
Sydney, but it is worth bringing to notice that 
the captain of the Emden was of a different type 
from the pirates who have made the German sailor 
the most loathed creature that breathes. It is 
hard to believe that he was a German, for it seems 
incredible that a German sailor would refrain 
from sinking a ship because there was a woman 
on board. One can imagine that he would be 
ostracized by his brother officers of the ward- 
room, for he actually had accompanying him a 
spare ship on which to put the crews of the ships 
he sank. One can hardly imagine him sitting at 
mess with the much-decorated murderer of the 
women and children on the Lusitania, and it is the 
latter who is the popular hero in Germany. There 
are none more ready than the Australian soldiers 
to show chivalry to an honorable foe, and when 
the Sydney brought Captain Mueller and the crew 
of the Emden among the troop-ships these pris- 
oners were cheered again and again. They could 
not understand their reception, but the lads from 



I40 "OVER THERE" 

Australia admired these brave men for their 
plucky fight and clever exploits. Would they, 
had they not been captured early in the war, 
have changed and become like the vile, cowardly 
sharks that infest the seas in U-boats ? 



The Great War is writing history on such a 
large scale that the old classic stories of heroism 
and devotion to duty will be forgotten by the 
next generation. The story of the Birkenhead 
has always been considered the highest illustra- 
tion of discipHne and steadiness in the face of 
death evinced by any troops, but the citizen- 
soldiers from the young Australian democracy 
have in this war given on two occasions proof that 
they possessed the same qualities. The South- 
land has been written in letters of gold on the 
pages of Australia's history. When the sneaking 
U-boat delivered its deadly blow in the entrails of 
this crowded troop-ship, there was no more ex- 
citement than if the alarm-bugles had simimoned 
them to an ordinary parade. Some of the boys 
fell in on deck without their life-belts, but were 
sent below to get them. They had to go, many of 
them, to the foLirth deck, but they scorned to 
show anxiety by proceeding at any other pace 
than a walk. It was soon evident that there were 
not enough boats left to take all off and so none 
would enter them and leave their comrades to go 



" SHIPS THAT PASS . • .'' 141 

down with the ship. They began to sing "Aus- 
tralia Will Be There"— 

*' Rally round the banner of your country, 
Take the field with brothers o'er the foam, 
On land or sea, wherever you be, 
Keep your eye on Germany. 
For England home and beauty 
Have no cause to fear — 
Should old acquaintance be forgot— 
No — no — no, no, no — 
Australia will be the-re-re-re ! 
Australia will be there ! " 

Some one called out, "Where?" and the answer 
came from many throats — "In hell, in five min- 
utes!" and it looked like it. But nothing in a 
future life could hold any terrors for the man who 
had campaigned during a simimer in Egypt. 
In the end volunteers were taken into the stoke- 
hole and the Southland was beached. The colonel 
was drowned and there were a few other casualties, 
but most escaped without a wetting, so what 
looked like an adventure turned out to be a pretty 
tame affair after all. But Australia will ever re- 
member how those boys stood fast with the dark 
waters of death washing their feet and, like Stoics, 
waited calmly for whatever Fate would send them. 
This epic of Australian fortitude was written in 
September, 191 5, and is part of the Dardanelles 
story. 

But the latest troops from Australia are of the 
same heroic stuff as those who wrote the name 



142 "OVER THERE'' 

*'Anzac" with their blood on the Gallipoli beach. 
For the Southland incident was dupHcated in al- 
most every particular on the Ballarat in April, 
191 7. This story was enacted in the waters of 
the English Channel, and there were no casualties, 
for the work of rescue by torpedo-boats was made 
easy as each man calmly waited his turn and 
enlivened the monotony meanwhile with ragtime, 
and again and again did the strains of "Australia 
Will Be There!" ring out over the waters. As 
they sang **So Long, Letty," many substituted 
other Christian names, and it looked as if it might 
be "so long" in reality. But they knew that to 
an Australian girl there would be no "sadness of 
farewell" when she realized that her lover had 
been carried heavenward by the guardian angel 
that waits to bear upward the soul of a hero. 

"Big Lizzie" (the Queen Elizabeth) was for 
many months queen of the waters round Gallipoli. 
Her tongue boomed louder than any other, and it 
was always known when she spoke. She was the 
latest thing in dreadnoughts then, just commis- 
sioned, and the largest ship afloat. Though since 
that time the British navy has added several 
giants that dwarf even her immense proportions. 
The boys in the trenches and on the beach at 
Anzac neVer failed to thrill with pride as they 
heard her baying forth her iron hate against the 
oppressor. We knew that wherever her ton- 



*' SHIPS THAT PASS . . /' 143 

weight shells fell there would be much weeping 
and gnashing of teeth among the enemy. We 
readily believed all the stories told of her prowess, 
no matter how impossible they seemed. No one 
doubted even when we heard that she had sunk 
a boat in the Sea of Marmora twenty-seven miles 
away, firing right over a mountain. She was 
there before our eyes an epitome of the might 
and power of the British navy that had policed 
the seas of the world, sweeping them clear of the 
surface pirate and also confining the depredations 
of the underwater assassin, so that all nations ex- 
cept the robber ones, might trade in safety. How 
true it is that the British navy has been the guar- 
antor of the freedom of the seas, so that even in 
British ports over the whole wide world all nations 
should have equality of trade ! Never has this 
power been used selfishly: take for instance, the 
British dominions of the South Seas, where Amer- 
ican goods can be sold cheaper than those of 
Britain, for the shorter distance more than com- 
pensates for the small preference in tariff. The 
almost improtected coast of the American con- 
tinent has been kept free of invaders; its large 
helpless cities are imshelled, because ''out there" 
in the North Sea the British navy maintains an 
eternal vigilance. 

After some valuable battleships were sent to 
the bottom by the German submarines it was real- 



144 "OVER THERE" 

ized that **Big Lizzie" was too vulnerable and 
valuable to be kept in these waters; so in the later 
months her place was taken by some weird craft 
that excited great curiosity among the sailormen. 
These were the *' monitors" which were just 
floating platforms for big guns. They were built 
originally for the rivers of South America, but it 
was discovered that their shallow draft made 
them impervious to torpedo attack; and as they 
were able to get close in shore, their big gims made 
havoc of the Turkish defenses. They do not 
travel at high speed and appear to waddle a good 
deal, but they have been most invaluable right 
along, and were of great assistance lately to the 
Italians in holding up the German drive. They 
have been used also around Ostend and are of 
prime importance wherever the flank of an army 
rests on the sea. I have picked up portions of 
their shells and seen the shrapnel lying like hail 
on sand-hills in Arabia (more than twenty miles 
from the Suez Canal, which was the nearest 
waterway). 

We also passed some other amazing-looking 
craft which were being towed down the Red Sea. 
They looked like armored houseboats, and were 
for use up the Tigris. I should not like to have 
been boxed up in one, for it looked as if they would 
have to use a can-opener to get you out, and it did 
not appear to me as though the sides were bullet- 



" SHIPS THAT PASS . . ." 145 

proof. But trust the Admiralty to know what 
they are doing! Pages could be filled with the 
mere cataloguing of the various kinds of ships 
used by the navy in this war, and I am told that 
these river "tanks'* were the prime factor in the 
advance in Mesopotamia. 

A marine court would decide that the River 
Clyde was not a ship at all but a fortress. There 
was a naval engagement in this war when two 
ships were refused their share of the prize money 
for the capture of German ships because they 
were anchored, the sea lawyers decreeing that 
they were forts. 

But the old, sea-beaten collier River Clyde de- 
serves to be remembered as a ship that has passed, 
for before she grounded on the beach she carried 
in her womb as brave a company of heroes as 
have ever emblazoned their deeds on a nation's 
roll of honor. The wooden horse that carried 
Ulysses and the heroic Greeks into the heart of 
ancient Troy did not enclose a braver band than 
were these modem youths shut within the iron- 
sides of the old tramp steamer which bore them 
into the camp of their enemies somewhere near 
the supposed site of the Homeric city. 

Doors had been cut in the sides of the old 
steamer, and lighters were moored alongside with 
laimches. When she ran aground these lighters 
were towed round so as to form a gangway to 



146 "OVER THERE" 

the shore, and the troops poiired down onto them. 
The Turks were as prepared in this case to repel 
an attack as at Anzac, and held their fire until 
the ship was hard and fast. They then had a 
huge target at pointblank range on which to con- 
centrate leaden hail from machine-guns and rifles 
aided by the shells from the Asiatic forts. Few 
lived in that eager first rush — some jumped into 
the sea to wade or swim, but were shot in the 
water or drowned under weight of their equipment. 
Again and again the lighters broke from their 
moorings, and many brave swimmers defied death 
to secure them. One boy won the Victoria Cross 
for repeatedly attempting to carry a rope in his 
teeth to the shore. But the crosses earned that 
day if they were awarded would give to the glorious 
Twenty-Ninth Division a distinction that none 
would begrudge them. The regiments of the 
Hampshires, Dublin, and Munster Fusiliers added 
in a few hours more glory to their colors than 
past achievements had given even such proud 
historic names as theirs. 

The landing at Cape Helles and the wooden 
horse are beacons of the Gallipoli campaign that 
shine undimmed alongside the Australian-New 
Zealand landing at Anzac which, as a rising sun, 
proclaimed the dawn of the day of their nation- 
hood. 

Another *'ship that passed'* and in its pass- 



" SHIPS THAT PASS . . ." 147 

ing wrought havoc on the enemy was one too 
small to support a man. It was a tiny raft, and 
it was propelled by one-man power, who swam 
ashore from a destroyer, towing this craft which 
was to bluff the Turks into believing that a whole 
army was descending upon them. The man was 
Lieutenant Freyberg, and on the raft he carried 
the armament that was to keep a large Tiu*kish 
force standing to arms at Bulair (the northern- 
most neck of the Peninsula) when they might 
have been preventing the landing on the other 
beaches. The weapons this gaUant young officer 
used were merely some flares which he lit at 
intervals along the beach, and then went naked 
inland to overlook the army he was attacking. 
Leaving them to endure for the rest of that night 
the continual strain of a momentarily expected 
attack, he then swam out to sea, for five miles, 
searching anxiously for the destroyer that was 
to pick him up. After several more hours of float- 
ing he was sighted by the rescuing ship and taken 
on board, exhausted and half dead. The Turkish 
papers stated that "the strong attack at Bulair 
was repulsed with heavy losses by our brave de- 
fenders." 

This hero, who is a New Zealander, and now 
Brigadier-General Freyberg, V.C., is well-known 
in California and was at Leland-Stanford Uni- 
versity. 



PART IV 
THE WESTERN FRONT 



CHAPTER XVII 
FERRY POST AND THE SUEZ CANAL DEFENSES 

The first attack on the Suez Canal caused the 
authorities to realize the need of protecting the 
canal by having a line of defense in Arabia far 
enough east to prevent the enemy reaching the 
waterway itself. For if the Turks shotdd again 
appear on the banks of the canal, they might 
easily put enough explosives in it to blow it up. 
So vital is this artery of the British Empire that 
a German general stated that if they struck a 
blow there they would sever the empire's neck. 
The Ttirkish attempt to cross the canal was easily 
frustrated, and of the Anzacs only a few New 
Zealanders had a part in the scrap; but the iron 
boats that they carried across the desert are in 
the museimi in Cairo and will be for generations 
** souvenirs" of this enterprise. 

After the evacuation of Gallipoli there were 
constant rumors of another attack being con- 
templated, and for several months the Australians 
and New Zealanders were kept in Egypt for the 
defense of the canal. Before we dug the trenches 
in Arabia (which were about ten miles east of 
the canal) passengers on steamers passing through 
it had some lively experiences, as the Bedouins of 



152 "OVER THERE" 

the desert wotild sometimes amuse themselves by 
sniping at those on board, and the wheel-house 
and bridge had to be protected by sand-bags. 

We were camped first at Tel-el- Kebir and then 
at Ferry Post, near Ismailia (where the canal 
enters the Bitter Lake). Those who took part 
in the march from Tel-el-Kebir will not forget 
it in a hurry. The camels bolted with our water 
and we only had our water-bottles in a hundred 
miles across the desert. By the time we reached 
the Sweet Water Canal we were panting like 
dogs, our tongues swollen and hanging out, our 
lips cracked and bleeding. There were many poor 
fellows just crazed for need of a drink, under 
that awful sun that was like the open furnace- 
door of hell, with the sand filling every orifice 
in our faces and parching our throats till they 
were inflamed. We were warned that the Sweet 
(or fresh) Water Canal was fuU of germs and 
that to drink it might possibly mean death, but 
most of us were too far gone in the agony of 
thirst to care whether the drink were our last, and 
we threw ourselves down at the water's edge 
and lapped it up like dogs. Fortimately, there 
were few ill effects, and the medical staff was 
not overworked because of it. There might have 
been many casualties, though, if it had not been 
for the New Zealanders, who, hearing of our plight, 
came out with water-carts and ambulances and 
picked up those who had fallen by the way. 



FERRY POST AND SUEZ CANAL 153 

At Ferry Post there was a reorganization of 
the AustraHan battalions and we lost many of 
our old pals — alas! never to meet again this side 
of eternity. 

This was the concentration camp whence bri- 
gades were despatched for a spell of trench- 
digging and guard duty at the outpost line. There 
was a good deal of rivalry between us and an- 
other brigade known as ''The Chocolate Soldiers." 
They received this nickname because they were 
the most completely equipped unit that ever left 
Australia. They were commanded by a well- 
known public man, and the womenfolk had seen 
that they lacked nothing in sweaters or bed- 
socks. They had a band for every battaHon, 
while we had to tramp along without the aid of 
music to enliven our lagging steps. Maybe we 
were a bit jealous, because they on several occa- 
sions went by train when we had to hoof it. When 
we went to relieve them in the trenches we met 
on a narrow concrete roadway where there was 
only room for one set of fours. The proper way 
to pass would have been for each to form two deep, 
but our boys spontaneously called out, "Give the 
gentlemen the road!" and we stepped aside into 
the sand. It took us about half an hour to 
pass, and all the time there was a running fire 
of comment. To no one in particular our fel- 
lows would remark, **Why, look! Some of them 
even shave!" **What a nice figure that captain 



154 "OVER THERE" 

has !" **They let them have real guns, too !" and 
as the transport passed piled high with officers* 
kits, there was a shout of ''There go their feather 
beds!" 

We had a sports meeting in the desert, and 
everybody in our brigade from the brigadier down 
to the cook's off-sider was delirious with joy when 
we carried off the ''championship cup," beating 
the "Chocolates" by two or three points. We 
might not have been so elated had not the 
"Chocs." been such "nuts" on themselves, for 
they had been offering ten to one on their chances. 

The part of the trenches that we occupied was 
known as "Hog's Back." On our left was "Dun- 
troon" (named after the Australian West Point). 
In front of us was a peculiarly shaped hill called 
"Whale Back." We did not live in the trenches 
themselves, as they were continually falling in and 
had to be cleaned out again practically every day. 
Our supplies were brought within about three 
miles on a light tramway. Sometimes we went 
short, as this train had a habit of turning over 
when roimding a comer and emptying our much- 
needed tucker in the bottom of the gully. 

From the rail-head, which was also the end of 
the pipe-line, food and water were loaded onto 
camels ; and as I had seen something of camel trans- 
port in western Queensland, I was for a few weeks 
put in charge of the camel-loading. Camels are 
ciuious beasts and know to an ounce the weight 



FERRY POST AND SUEZ CANAL 155 

they carried yesterday, and if you attempt to put 
on them one jam- tin more they will curse you 
long and loud, end up with some very sarcastic 
and personal remarks, and then submit to the 
injustice under protest. They are very revenge- 
ful and will harbor a grudge for days, waiting 
their chance to bite your arm off when they can 
catch you unawares. A camel's load has to be 
equal weight on each side, and it was some problem 
making a ham and a side of beef balance a case 
of canned goods. These camels were a mongrel 
breed, anyway, and poor weight-carriers. We 
usually put an eight-htmdred-pound load on a 
camel in Queensland — I have seen one carrying 
two pianos — but these beasts would not carry 
more than two himdred pounds. A camel has 
never really been tamed and they protest against 
everything they are asked to do. They growl 
and swear when made to kneel, and make as much 
fuss again when urged to get up. Their skin 
never heals from a cut or sore, but they can have 
no feeling in it, for the Arabs simply stitch a piece 
of leather over the place. An old camel is all 
shreds and patches. They have to be provided 
with separate drinking-places from the horses, 
for they put germs in the water that give the 
horses some kind of disease. They are unsociable 
brutes and ought to be segregated, an3rway. No 
wonder every high-bred horse is terrified at the 
smell of a camel; the first time you meet one it is 



IS6 "OVER THERE" 

like a blow in the face and remains a weight on your 
mind until the camel is a long way to leeward. 
They had a special objection to carrying fresh 
water, and nearly always bolted when they dis- 
covered it was "Adam's ale" that was swishing 
about on the outside of their hump. Perhaps it 
reminded them of their last week's drink. The 
restdt for us was that when the transport arrived 
there would be no water, and Mr. Ishmail and his 
camel would have to beat a hasty retreat from the 
rage of the boys, for water was our chief need, and 
it seems to me that there never was a time in 
those trenches that I wasn't thirsty. 

I had some fun scouting in the desert, but on 
several occasions was very nearly lost when there 
were no stars, and hills had been altered in shape 
by the wind since I last passed them. We were 
expecting an attack by the Turks, and some camel 
patrols we sent out reported signs of camps but 
no sight of the enemy. As a consequence of 
these rumors our sentries were very nervous, and 
we scouts ran considerable risk returning to our 
lines before daylight. I was very nearly shot 
on several occasions, and once was within an ace 
of firing on one of my best pals. I saw a figure 
in the dark and, sneaking up to it, called out: 
"Put up your hands!" He did so, but then 
foolishly dropped them again. If he had not 
called out, "Who the hell are you?" at the same 
moment, he would have been a dead man. 



FERRY POST AND SUEZ CANAL 157 

A squadron of our Light Horse discovered a 
Turkish well-boring party in the desert. They 
were under command of an Austrian engineer, 
but soon surrendered when they saw that they were 
surrounded. This made us sure that the Turkish 
army could not be far away, but our aeroplanes 
reported no signs of it. A few weeks later an 
attack was made by about twenty thousand 
Turks on the Scottish regiment holding the line 
to the north of us and we had a bit of a skir- 
mish with their flank guard. They surprised us 
completely; the fight was fought mostly in py- 
jamas on our part, but we had little difficulty in 
driving them off. This raid was some achieve- 
ment and I take off my hat to the man who 
planned it. They came across those many miles 
of desert without being seen, bringing with them 
even six-inch guns. They bluffed our aeroplanes 
by only travelling at night and hiding under 
sand-colored canvas in the daytime. Their heavy 
transport was moved by laying a track in front 
of it, taking it up behind as it passed on and put- 1 
ting it down in front again. 

We captured a lone Turk soldier nursing his 
blistered feet in the desert and he was delighted 
to join us. We also brought in at the same time 
a Bedouin who evidently thought we were some 
species of game, for although he fired on us he 
had no love for his Turkish companion and could 
not be persuaded to keep him company. The 



IS8 **OVER THERE'* 

only request I heard this Turk make was for one 
of our uniforms. He kept pointing out the filth 
of his own clothes, so I had some water given to 
him to wash them, but this did not satisfy him at 
all. It was not the cleanliness of our uniforms 
he admired, but the cut and material. Perhaps 
this was policy, for generally the Turkish prisoners 
would remark: ''Englisher very good — German 
damn bad!" 

After this we returned to Ferry Post again and 
it was almost like going home for we had daily 
swims in the canal and plenty of liquid refresh- 
ment, the wet canteen doing a roaring trade. We 
were also able to buy luxuries, such as biscuits and 
canned puddings; and even relieve the monotony 
of marmalade jam with "bullocky's joy." This 
last is merely molasses or "golden syrup" called 
**bullocky's joy," sometimes " cocky 's delight" 
because it is the chief covering for sHces of bread 
with the bullock-driver or cocky farmer in Aus- 
tralia. 

When a steamer was passing through the canal 
dining our bathing-parades we had to get in up 
to the neck as we were warmly clad with merely a 
tin identity-disk himg round our necks on a piece 
of dirty string. Some of the passengers would 
throw into the water tins of tobacco and cigarettes; 
and there were some sprints for these made in 
record time, I tell you. Sometimes we would 
receive messages from home and it was surpris- 



FERRY POST AND SUEZ CANAL 159 

ing how often the man whose name was called 
out would chance to be present. There were 
occasions, however, when some one would call 
out from the ships: "D'you know Private Brown 
of the Yorkshires?" and we would have to ex- 
plain that we were Australians. I suppose we 
could not expect them to recognize us dressed as 
we were, though otu- language should have given 
them a hint. On our part we would inquire if 
the war was still on, and tell them to give our 
regards to King George. 

One morning the camp was all agog and the 
air thick with "furphies." We were ordered to 
get ready for embarkation, and speculation was 
rife as to our destination. Some said we were 
going to Mesopotamia. Others had it from a 
reliable source that we were bound for Salonika. 
Some one said, that some one told them, that they had 
heard, that a sentry outside the general's tent had 
overheard the general talking in his sleep and we 
were to make another attack on the Dardanelles! 
There were few who guessed we were going to 
France, such being too good to be true, and only 
the bold ones dared to whisper *'that it might be 
so," but they were immediately told to ''Shut 
up ! Don't be an ass ! Hasn't our luck been out 
ever since we left Australia?" I really think we 
were afraid to voice oiu* hopes aloud lest Fate 
should overhear us, and if the word ''France'* 
was mentioned by accident we all immediately 



i6o "OVER THERE" 

touched wood, a handy pal's head serving the 
purpose. 

When we took train for Alexandria our hearts 
beat almost to suffocation and it was only when the 
troop-ship cleared the harbor, and eager eyes 
watching the compass saw her course was set N.W., 
that we gave a cheer, feeling that at last we might 
have a chance to show our mettle with the Cana- 
dians and Tommies, where the biggest fight was 
raging. 

Before we left the wharf our kits were inspected 
and cut down to absolutely the minimimi weight. 
Transport space was Hmited, but it broke many of 
our hearts to part with the sweater "Phyllis'* 
made. We could only keep two pairs of socks; 
some boys had at least fifty. In one boy's pack 
there was a red pair and he was thereafter always 
known as "Coldfeet." No one wept at leaving 
Egypt, and France held all the fruit of our dreams. 



CHAPTER XVIII 
FIRST DAYS IN FRANCE . . . 

We had some excitement crossing from Alex- 
andria to Marseilles, and the troop-ship~ ahead of 
us was torpedoed, though no lives were lost. But 
it was great to see our watch-dog of a destroyer 
chase after the submarine. The transport I was 
on was going over twenty-two knots, but the 
destroyer passed us as though we were standing 
still. The captain of our ship said she was doing 
forty-seven knots. At any rate, she rammed the 
submarine and must have appeared, through their 
periscope, just as a huge wave. 

How excited those French people were over us 
Australians! They pelted us with flowers and 
sweets, and, while no one objected to the embraces 
of the girls, we thought it a bit too much when the 
men as well threw their arms around us and kissed 
us on both cheeks. French customs were new to 
us, and some of the boys thought the men were 
crazy. 

We weren't allowed much time to enjoy the 
gayeties of this lovely French seaport, but were 
marched off to the train and sent north to the big 
show. We thought we had never seen such 
lovely scenery as the south of France. I am not 

i6i 



l62 "OVER THERE'' 

going to say that we have not just as good in 
Australia, but the wonderful greenness and the 
trees were such a change to us after Egypt that 
the boys just hung from the carriage- windows, 
and as there was a good number that could not 
get these vantage-points, they scrambled onto 
the roofs of the carriages, so as not to miss any 
of that wonderful panorama of ever-changing 
beauty. 

We did not leave that train until we were well 
within soimd of the guns, and then disentrained at 
a small village named Morbecque. We went into 
tents in a farmyard, and the very first evening be- 
gan to make acquaintances among the villagers. 

The Hims had only been there a day or two in 
their march on Paris, and during that time the 
inhabitants had made themselves scarce. But 
enough damage had been done in the houses dur- 
ing those two days to make every man, woman, 
and child speak with disgust of the filthy "boche." 

Everybody was very willing to make friends with 
us Australians, but the difficulties of language pre- 
vented a very rapid growth in knowledge of each 
other. All were on the htmt for souvenirs, and on 
the second day hardly a man had a button left on 
his coat. Orders were issued that the buttons 
be replaced before the next parade, and it was 
amusing to hear the boys trying to explain to the 
village shop-mistress what they wanted. It ended 
in their ransacking the stock themselves, but I 



FIRST DAYS IN FRANCE . . • 163 

do not think any one foiind many buttons of the 
same kind, and otir uniforms did not look as smart 
as usual, as somehow blouse-buttons do not seem 
to go well with a uniform. 

These people were simple and religious, as I 
found most of the French people to be, at least 
the coimtry-folk. I received no less than six cruci- 
fixes that I was assured by the charming donors 
would protect me from all danger, as they had been 
blessed by certain archbishops, the favorite being 
the archbishop of Amiens. I was mean enough 
to remark to one of them that it was a wonder 
any of the Frenchmen ever were killed. After I 
had been in the trenches I met again the daughter 
of the mayor, who had given me one of these cruci- 
fixes to wear around my neck. I informed her 
how a bullet had passed between my eye and the 
telescope I was using, laying open my cheek. 
She was quite sure that the bullet was going 
through my temple but had been diverted by the 
power of the charm, and fourteen "aves" she said 
for me every day. 

While at this village I saw both a wedding and 
a funeral, but the funeral was by far the most 
spectacular of the two. The whole of the out- 
side of the house was covered with black cloth 
— it must have taken a himdred yards — and pro- 
cessions of boys and girls went back and forth 
from church to house for several days, singing the 
most doleful music. Every one in the village 



i64 "OVER THERE" 

attended the burial, and I really think enjoyed the 
show. 

For six days we lay snug in this village, every 
day going for route-marches of fifteen to twenty 
miles to harden us up again after the soft days on 
the transport. We knew we were on the lip of the 
caldron of war, for day and night we heard the 
rumbling of the guns. 

Then on the seventh day I was chosen as one 
of a party to go up to the trenches and find out 
the positions we were to take over. We went 
by train a few miles nearer the line, and the guns 
grew ever louder. Then, after a ten-mile walk, 
we came suddenly to a barrier across the road, 
and a notice telling us that from this point parties 
of not more than six must proceed in single file, 
walking at the side of the road. Our flesh began 
to creep a little as we thought on the sinister need 
for these precautions. 

After about five miles of this, on stepping 
through a hedge we suddenly found ourselves in a 
communication-trench. This trench was not very 
deep, and a tall man's head would project over the 
top. It was surprising how many of us thought 
we were six-footers and acqmred a stoop, lest the 
tops of our hats show. 

You are always nervous the first time in a new 
trench, as you do not know the danger-spots and 
are not even quite siu*e in which direction the 
•enemy lies, for the communication-trench zigzags 



FIRST DAYS TN FRANCE ... 165 

so. However, you generally acquire a bravado 
which you do not feel, for you see the old residents 
walking unconcernedly about, and you dare not 
let them see your nervousness. I remember on 
this morning we stepped right into hell. The 
"boche" evidently caught sight of one of our 
parties, and may have thought that a "change 
over" was taking place, for we had hardly got to 
the front line when he started to pour shells upon 
it. Gaps were torn in the commimication-trench 
behind us, and shells were falling so thick when we 
tinned into the trench that we soon saw we had 
not chosen a favorable time to "talk dispositions" 
with the battalion in the line. When they real- 
ized, however, that we would most likely relieve 
them in a day or two, they almost fell on our necks 
with joy, for they had been five weeks in these 
trenches, and thought that they were there for 
good. There was little rejoicing among us, how- 
ever, for, of otir party of sixteen, seven were killed 
and four woimded in that visit of a few hoiurs. 
Two sergeants (who had just been chosen for 
commissions) were blown to pieces as I was talk- 
ing to them. As I turned to reply to a question 
addressed to me by one of them the shell came, 
and in a second there was not enough left of 
either for identification. I picked myself up un- 
hurt. Shells seem to have a way with them — one 
man being taken, and the other left. And it is not 
always the man nearest the shell that is taken. 



i66 "OVER THERE" 

They told me to go back to the support-trenches 
for tea; about three hundred yards, and the com- 
munication-trench that I had to travel down was 
as imhealthy as any place I have ever been in. I 
was told the reason the enemy had its range so 
accurately was that it was of their own building. 
The support-trenches seemed to be getting more 
shells, even than the front line, and it looked as 
if I was walking out of the frying-pan into the 
fire. 

Tea was the last thing I was wanting, but, as 
others were eating, I had to put up a bluff, 
though I felt it would be a sinful waste if I were 
to be killed immediately afterward. 

That first day, however, took away most of my 
fears, and thereafter I got to fancy I possessed a 
charmed life and the bullet or shell was not made 
that would harm me. 

The most surprising thing of the life over there 
is the narrow escapes one has. There are scores 
of men who have been in almost every battle from 
the beginning, and are still there, and that day it 
seemed truly as if I walked in a zone of safety, as 
shells would fall in front of me and behind, and 
even pushed in the parapet against which I was 
leaning, and I did not even get shell-shock. 

I sat with my "dixie" of stew and lid of tea in 
the open doorway of a dugout, and the whiz-bangs 
passed within twenty yards of me and pelted me 
with pieces of dirt, but nothing hard enough to 



FIRST DAYS IN FRANCE ... 167 

break the skin struck me. We did not learn much 
about those trenches on this visit, and were a sad 
little party that went back to our companions with 
the news of what had befallen our comrades and 
the perils awaiting them. The two remaining 
days spent in that little village were full of fore- 
boding. Those who had ''gone west" were well 
loved, and but yesterday so full of the joy of 
life. 

Nearly every one wrote home those nights, as 
it might be for the last time. 

Under fire men are affected in different ways, 
but as for myself, I must admit that after that 
first day I felt I was not to die on the battle- 
field, and this gave me a confidence that many 
of my comrades thought was due to lack of fear. 
Strange to say, this feeling of security left me 
only on the night I was wounded, many months 
later. But of that in its proper place. 

When we left Morbecque, the whole of the in- 
habitants turned out to bid us farewell. Many 
of the women wept, and though we had only 
been there a week, we felt we were leaving old 
friends. 

We knew something of what these French people 
had already paid in defending that in which we 
were as much concerned. There was not a young 
man in the whole neighborhood, and it was the 
old grandfathers and grandmothers that worked 
the farms. 



i68 "OVER THERE 



>> 



Our hearts had warmed to France, before we 
knew the lovable French people themselves, be- 
cause she had borne the brunt in the first years 
of the war, and her soil had been ravaged, and 
her women so imspeakably maltreated. And 
it seemed that the French people took especial 
interest in us Australians who had come twelve 
thousand miles to join in this fight in defense of 
the world's liberty. 

This war has done more to make known to each 
other the people of the world than any other event 
in history. Many of the French people had hardly 
heard of Australia, but hereafter they will never 
forget the name of the land whence came those 
stalwart boys who marched singing through their 
country; who went to war with laughter, and 
when out of the trenches were ever ready to give 
a hand with the crops. 

To their poverty it seemed as if we Australians 
were all millionaires, and otu: ready cash was a 
godsend wherever we went. Although we did 
not receive on the field our full six shillings a 
day, we always had more money to spend than 
the "Tommies." In fact, frequently within a 
few hoiH-s after our arrival in a village we would 
buy out all of its stores. The temptation must 
have been great, yet I never knew a French farmer 
or storekeeper attempt to overcharge us. All we 
had, we spent, and though we grumbled enough 
that we were not able to draw our full pay, the 



FIRST DAYS IN FRANCE ... 169 

French people thought that we were simply roll- 
ing in money. 

The brigade did not go by train any of the dis- 
tance, but marched the whole way to the trenches, 
taking two days. This part of the country was 
just on the edge of the Him advance and, being 
only visited by some scouting-parties of Uhlans, 
had escaped most of war's ravages. We marched 
through beautiful woods, passed peaceful villages, 
and over sleepy canals that we saw not again in 
France in many long months — most of us, alas, 
never. 

I do not know whether they wanted to show 
what Australians could do, but we did a forced 
march that day of eighteen miles with full packs 
up — eight of them without a ''breather." This 
may not sound much, but our boys were as nearly 
physically perfect as it was possible for men to be, 
and yet when we arrived at camp we left a third 
of them on the road. 

We went into billets at Sailly, within five miles 
of the firing-line, where we found the civilian pop- 
ulation going about their avocations as though 
war were a thousand miles away. There were 
plenty of ruins and even great holes in the streets 
that showed the Hun had not only the power, 
but the will, to send these death-dealing missiles 
among the women and children still living there. 
I thought the boys were too tired from their 
march to want to look 'round the town, but after 



I70 "OVER THERE" 

"hot tea'* had been served out, they were Hke 
new men, and went out to explore the place, as 
though they merely had had a morning stroll. 
Hot tea is to the Australian what whiskey is to 
the Scotchman, his best "pick me up." 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE BATTLE OF FLEURBAIX . . . 

Next morning it was "going in" with a ven- 
geance. We did not enter the same trenches 
where I had been a few days previously, but about 
a mile farther south. These trenches were our 
*'home" for over three months, so let me try and 
describe how they were built and looked to us 
on that day of entry. In this part of the line, 
near the borders of Belgium, you cannot dig down, 
the soil is so marshy, so the trenches are what 
is known as breastwork. They are built up about 
six feet from the level of the ground, a solid wall 
of sand-bags, ten to twenty feet thick. This will 
stand the hit of all but the heaviest shells, but is 
an unmistakable target if the enemy artillery have 
observation at all. The support and front line 
trenches were divided every two himdred yards, 
by communication-trenches, built in the same 
way, except that the communication-trench had 
two sides. These communication- trenches were 
distinguished by such names as "Pinney's Ave.," 
*'V. C. Ave.," which latter was supposed to be 
built on the spot where Michael O'Leary won the 
first Victoria Cross of the war. Others were called 

171 



172 "OVER THERE'* 

*'Bond Street," *'Brompton Ave.," and "Mine 
Ave." 

Later on my brigade held the length of trench 
that included all these, from Mine Ave. to Bond 
Street, over one thousand yards ; but for the bat- 
tle and the first ten days we only held about 
three hundred yards, using the three communica- 
tion-trenches — Pinney's, Brompton, and V. C. 

I had a good deal of apprehension as the bri- 
gade marched in, remembering the reception our 
reconnoitring party had received. If ''Fritz" had 
spotted a score of us he could not well avoid 
noticing a thousand, though we were broken into 
little parties of six, that moved along the gutter 
in single file. But he must have been asleep this 
day, for the *' change over" was completed with 
little attention from him in the way of shells. 

Leading up to *'Pinney*s Ave.," there was a 
short length of communication-trench very ap- 
propriately called "Impertinence Sap," for it was 
merely a ditch, three feet deep, floored with 
"duck boards." I could never get the reason 
why this trench was built. It only afforded pro- 
tection for one's legs, which is the part of the 
body one would rather be hit in if one must be 
hit at all. The goose-flesh always crept around 
my head when I walked along this sap, for, strange 
to say, my head seemed to be the most valuable 
part of me, and at night the machine-gun bullets 
used to whistle through the low hedge that ran 




tc 
c 
*o 

O 



BATTLE OF FLEURBAIX ... 173 

alongside it and frequently struck sparks from 
the flints on the old road just a yard or two away. 

1 suppose I used that sap two hundred times, 
always with misgivings, for I have seen more than 
a score of men punctured along its length. 

All these parts were unhealthy. The Rue de 
Bois, the street that ran parallel to the firing- 
trench, about a thousand yards behind the front 
line, was always under indirect machine-gun fire, 
yet was, nevertheless, used regularly every night 
by our transports. It was surprising how few 
mules were killed. Many times have I skipped, 
as the bullets struck sparks around my feet. 

After a while we got to know that "Fritz" had 
a regular cut-and-dried system in the shelling of 
these trenches. He always took Mine Ave., 
Brompton Ave., and Pinney's Ave. alternately, 
and we later on saved a number of lives by having 
a sentry at the entrance to these communication- 
trenches to give warning to use the other trench 
while this one was being shelled. Weeks later I 
worked out the enemy's bombardment system 
more thoroughly, and had such notices as this 
posted: "Pinney's Ave. dangerous on Mondays, 

2 to 6 p. M.," "V. C. unhealthy Tuesday after- 
noons," and so on. I know I saved my own life 
several times by watching ** Fritz's" times and 
seasons. I am quite sure that each battery "over 
yonder" had a book that laid down a certain 
number of rounds to be fired at a certain range 



174 "OVER THERE" 

on Mondays, and so on for every day in the 
week. And every relieving battery would take 
over this "book of instructions." Of course 
there were times when *' Fritz" "got the wind 
up" (lost his nerve), and then he would shell any- 
thing indiscriminately. The god of the German 
is Method, and his goddess System, and it htirt 
his gunners sorely when we tried something new, 
and made him depart from some long-predevised 
plan. 

However, these were discoveries of a later date 
than the battle which wiped out about 70 per 
cent of oiu: strength. 

We had not been two days in the trenches be- 
fore we knew that we were destined for an at- 
tack on the trenches opposite, and we had not 
had time even to know the way about our own 
lines. Few of us had even had a glimpse of No 
Man's Land, or sight of the fellow across the 
street whom we were to fight. 

Our guns immediately began to get busy. In 
fact, too busy for our liking, for they had not yet 
got the correct range. This was before the days 
of total aeroplane supremacy, and the battery 
commander in those days had not an observer 
flying above where his shells were falling, inform- 
ing him of the slightest error. 

At any rate, we soon began to discover that 
the shells that were bursting among us were 
many of them coming from behind. This made 



BATTLE OF FLEURBAIX ... 175 

us very uncomfortable, for we were not protected 
against our own artillery-fire; and accidents will 
sometimes happen, do what you can to avoid 
them. Our first message over the 'phone was 
very polite. "We preferred to be killed by the 
Germans, thank you," was all we said to the bat- 
tery commander. But as his remarks continued 
to come to us through the air, accompanied by a 
charge of explosive, and two of oiu* officers being 
killed, our next message was worded very differ- 
ently, and we told him that ''if he fired again we 
would turn the machine-guns on to them." I 
was sent back to make sure that he got the mes- 
sage. I took the precaution to take back with 
me one of his "duds" (unexploded shells) as evi- 
dence. At first he told me I was crazy — that we 
were getting German cross-fire, and that his shells 
were falling two himdred yards in front of us. I 
brought out my souvenir, and asked him if he 
had ever seen that before. He said: "For God's 
sake, bury it," but I told him it was going to 
divisional headquarters, and that his little mis- 
take had already cost several lives. This battery 
did not belong to our division. 

Our company commanders gathered us in 
small groups and carefully explained the plan 
of attack. We were to take the three lines of 
German trenches that were clearly discernible on 
the aeroplane photograph which was shown us; 
the first wave was to take the first trench, the 



176 "OVER THERE'* 

second jumping over their heads and attacking 
the second German line, the third wave going 
on to the third German line. When all the Ger- 
mans had been killed in the first trench, those 
left of the first wave were to follow to the third 
line. Unfortimately this photograph misled us, 
as one of the supposed trenches proved to be a 
ditch, and a great number of men were lost 
by going too far into enemy territory, seeking 
the supposed third line. 

I have seen an actual photograph taken by an 
aeroplane during this battle, that shows a fight 
going on five miles behind the German lines. 
Many of the boys had sworn not to be taken 
prisoners, and though they knew they were cut 
off, they fought on until every last one of them 
was killed. 

The Germans were thoroughly aware of our in- 
tentions to attack. Bad weather made a post- 
ponement for a couple of days advisable, and 
there had been so much artillery preparation that 
the enemy had time to get ready for us. 

Considering the short time that our own artil- 
lery had been in their positions, and that they 
did not know a few days previously the range of 
the enemy's positions, their work was very thor- 
oughly done. In most cases the wire had been 
well cut, and the enemy's front-line trenches were 
badly smashed about. 

The Germans must have had some spies behind 



BATTLE OF FLEURBAIX ... 177 

our lines, for they knew the actual moment of 
attack, and our feints failed to deceive them. 
Before the real attack the bombardment would 
cease for a moment or two, whistles being blown, 
orders shouted, and bayonets shown above the 
top of the parapet. The idea was that the Ger- 
mans would then man their parapet to meet our 
attack, the artillery again opening fire on the 
trench. They failed to appear, however, until 
we actually went over the top, then the machine- 
guns and rifles swept a hail of bullets in our faces, 
like a veritable blizzard. 

Nothing could exceed the bravery of those boys. 
The first wave went down like "wheat before 
the reaper." When the time came for the second 
wave to go over there was not a man standing of 
the first wave, yet not a lad faltered. Each 
gazed at his watch and on the arranged tick of 
the clock leaped over. In many cases they did 
not get any farther than the first wave. The 
last wave, though they knew each had to do the 
work of three, were in their places and started on 
their forlorn hope at the appointed moment. 

This battle was a disaster. We failed to take 
the German trenches, but it was like two other 
failiu*es, the defense of Belgiiun and the attack 
of the Dardanelles — a failure so glorious as to fill 
a man with pride that he was enabled to play a 
part in it. In this battle we so smashed five 
divisions of Bavarian guards that it was months 



178 "OVER THERE" 

before they got back into the trenches. Had they 
gone to Verdun at that time it might have meant 
its fall, as they were the flower of the German 
army. 

In places both first and second German lines 
were taken, but in others we did not get across 
No Man's Land. 

It was not that certain companies fought better 
than others, but here and there were unexpected 
obstacles. In one place No Man's Land was 
only fifty yards across, while elsewhere it was 
three htmdred yards. There was a creek running 
diagonally across in one section, too wide to leap, 
too deep to ford, and the only place where it was 
bridged was so marked by the German machine- 
guns that the dead were piled in heaps about it. 

Those who actually reached the German 
trenches were too few to consolidate, and the 
German artillery soon began to take a heavy toll 
of them, knowing the range of their own trenches 
to a yard. So these had to come back again, and 
when night fell we were back in our old trenches 
— rather a few of us were; most of our division 
lay out in No Man's Land. 

All were not dead, but we had no men to help 
the wounded. We had no stretchers, and those 
that were alive, unwounded, were so fatigued as 
to be hardly able to stand upright. But we could 
not stand the thought of the fellows out there 
without help, and we crawled among them, tak- 



BATTLE OF FLEURBAIX ... 179 

ing the biscuits and water from the dead and giv- 
ing them to the wounded. We could only reach 
a few of them, and we crawled back at daylight, 
cursing our impotence, and fearing what the day 
might bring to these our comrades, lying helpless 
in full view of the brutal enemy. 

The sight of our trenches that next morning is 
burned into my brain. Here and there a man 
could stand upright, but in most places if you did 
not wish to be exposed to a sniper's bullet you 
had to progress on your hands and knees. In 
places the parapet was repaired with bodies — 
bodies that but yesterday had housed the per- 
sonality of a friend by whom we had warmed 
ourselves. If you had gathered the stock of a 
thousand butcher-shops, cut it into small pieces 
and strewn it about, it would give you a faint con- 
ception of the shambles those trenches were. 

One did not ask the whereabouts of brother or 
chum. If we did not see him, then it were best 
to hope that he were of the dead. 

It were folly to look over the parapet, for nearly 
every shell-hole contained a wounded man, and, 
poor fellow, he would wave to show his where- 
abouts; and though we could not help him, it 
would attract the attention of the Huns, who 
still had shells to spare — so that the wounded 
might not fight again. 

I have found the Bavarian even worse than the 
Prussian, and this day, and the next, and again, 



i8o "OVER THERE" 

did they sweep No Man's Land with machine- 
guns and shrapnel, so as to kill the wounded. 

When darkness came the second night, we had 
organized parties of rescue, but we still had prac- 
tically no stretchers, and the most of the men 
had to be carried in on our backs. 

I went out to the bridge, and in between 
machine-gun bursts began to pull down that 
heap of dead. Not all were dead, for in some 
of the bodies that formed that pyramid life was 
breathing. Some were conscious but too weak 
to struggle from out that weight of flesh. Ma- 
chine-guns were still playing on this spot, and 
after we had lost half of our rescuing party, we 
were forbidden to go here again, as live men 
were too scarce. 

But the work of rescue did not cease. Two 
himdred men were carried in from a space less in 
area than an acre. 

One lad, who looked about fifteen, called to me : 
"Don't leave me, sir." I said, '*I will come back 
for you, sonny," as I had a man on my back at 
the time. In that waste of dead one wounded 
man was like a gem in sawdust — just as hard to 
find. Four trips I made before I foimd him, then 
it was as if I had found my own young brother. 
Both his legs were broken, and he was only a 
schoolboy, one of those overgrown lads who had 
added a couple of years in declaring his age to 
get into the army. But the circtmistances brought 



BATTLE OF FLEURBAIX ... i8i 

out his youth, and he clung to me as though I 
were his father. Nothing I have ever done has 
given me the joy that the rescuing of that lad did, 
and I do not even know his name. He was the 
only one who did not say: **Take the other fellow 
first." 

There were men who were forty-eight hours 
without food or drink, without having their 
wounds dressed, knowing that the best they had 
to hope for was a bullet. That the chances were 
they would die of starvation or exposure, and yet 
again and again would they refuse to be taken 
until we should look to see if there was not some 
one alive in a neighboring shell-hole. They would 
tell us to "look in the drain, or among those 
bushes over there.'* During the day they had 
heard a groan. A groan, mind you, and there 
were men there with legs off, and arms hanging 
by a skin, and men sightless, with half their face 
gone, with bowels exposed, and every kind of un- 
mentionable wounds, yet some one had groaned. 
Why, some had gritted teeth on bayonets, others 
had stuffed their tunics in their mouths, lest they 
should groan. Some one had written of the Aus- 
tralian soldier in the early part of the war, ''that 
they never groan/' and these men who had read 
that would rather die than not live up to the repu- 
tation that some newspaper correspondent had 
given them. 

I lay for half an hour with my arms around the 



i82 "OVER THERE 



»> 



neck of a boy within a few yards of a German 
*' listening post," while the man who was with me 
went back to try and find a stretcher. He told 
me he had neither mother nor friend, was brought 
up in an orphanage, and that no one cared whether 
he lived or died. But our hearts rubbed as we 
lay there, and we vowed lifelong friendship. It 
does not take long to make a friend imder those 
circumstances, but he died in my arms and I do 
not know his name. 

There was another man who was anxious about 
his money-belt; perhaps it contained something 
more valuable than money. I went back for it, 
stuffing it in my pocket, and then forgot all about 
it. When I thought of it again the belt was gone, 
and the owner had gone off to hospital. I do not 
know who he was, and maybe he thinks I have 
his belt still. 

One of the most self-forgetful actions ever 
performed was by Sergeant Ross. We found a 
man on the German barbed wire, who was so 
badly wounded that when we tried to pick him 
up, one by the shoulders and the other by the 
feet, it almost seemed that we would pull him 
apart. The blood was gushing from his mouth, 
where he had bitten through lips and tongue, so 
that he might not jeopardize, by groaning, the 
chances of some other man who was less badly 
woimded than he. He begged us to put him out 
of his misery, but we were determined we would 



BATTLE OF FLEURBAIX ... 183 

get him his chance, though we did not expect 
him to Hve. But the sergeant threw himself 
down on the ground and made of his body a 
human sledge. Some others joined us, and we 
put the wounded man on his back and dragged 
them thus across two hundred yards of No Man's 
Land, through the broken barbed wire and shell- 
torn ground, where every few inches there was a 
piece of jagged shell, and in and out of the shell- 
holes. So anxious were we to get to safety that 
we did not notice the condition of the man under- 
neath until we got into our trenches; then it was 
hard to see which was the worst wounded of the 
two. The sergeant had his hands, face, and body 
torn to ribbons, and we had never guessed it, for 
never once did he ask us to *'go slow" or ''wait 
a bit." Such is the sttiff that men are made of. 
It sounds incredible, but we got a wounded 
man, still alive, eight days after the attack. It 
was reported to me that some one was heard call- 
ing from No Man's Land for a stretcher-bearer, 
but I suspected a German trap, for I did not think 
it possible that any man could be out there alive 
when it was more than a week after the battle and 
there had been no men missing since. However, 
we had to make sure, and I took a man out with 
me named Private Mahoney; also a ball of 
string. We still heard the call, and as it came 
from nearer the German trenches than otus we 
knew they must hear as well. When we got near 



i84 "OVER THERE*' 

the shell-hole from which the sound came I told 
Mahoney to wait, while I crawled roiind to ap- 
proach it from the German side. I took the end 
of the ball of string in my hand, so as to be able 
to signal back, and from a shell-hole just a few 
yards away I asked the man who he was and to 
tell me the names of some of his officers. As he 
seemed to know the names of all the officers I 
crawled into the hole alongside him, though I 
was still suspicious, and signalled back to my 
companion to go and get a stretcher. 

As soon as I had a good look at the poor fellow 
I knew he was one of ours. His hands and face 
were as black as a negro's, and all of him from 
the waist down was beneath the mud. He had 
not strength to move his hands, but his ''voice 
was a good deal too strong, " for he started to talk 
to me in a shout: **It's so good, matey, to see a 
real live man again. I've been talking to dead 
men for days. There was two men came up to 
speak to me who carried their heads under their 
arms!" 

I whispered to him to shut up, but he would 
only be quiet for a second or two, and soon the 
Germans knew that we were trying to rescue 
him, for the machine-gtm bullets chipped the 
edge of the hole and showered us with dirt. In 
about half an hour Mahoney returned with the 
stretcher, but we had to dig the poor fellow's 
limbs out, and only just managed to get into the 



BATTLE OF FLEURBAIX • . . 185 

next hole during a pause in the machine-gun 
bursts. To cap all, our passenger broke into song, 
and we just dropped in time as the bullets pinged 
over us. These did not worry our friend on the 
stretcher, nor did the bump hurt him, for he 
cheerfully shouted "Down go my horses!" We 
gagged him after that and got him safely in, but the 
poor fellow only lived a couple of days, for blood- 
poisoning had got too strong a hold of his frail 
body for medical skill to avail. His name I have 
forgotten, and the hospital records would only state : 
"Private So-and-so received [a certain date]; 
died [such a date]. Cause of death — tetanus." 



CHAPTER XX 
DAYS AND NIGHTS OF STRAFE 

We had only been a few days in the trenches 
in France when I was sent for by the General. 
I went in fear and trembling, wondering what 
offense I had committed ; but I soon did not know 
whether I was standing on my heels or my head, for 
he said to me: ''I have recommended you for a 
commission, and you are immediately to take 
over the duties of intelligence or scouting officer." 
This was a big step up, as I was only a corporal, 
though I had been acting in charge of a position 
over the heads of many who were my seniors in 
rank. 

Now began for me many adventurous and 
happy days, for my job afforded me a great deal 
of independence and scope for initiative, and I 
was able to plan and execute many little stunts 
that must have irritated Fritz a good deal. When 
I was returning at dawn from my night's pere- 
grinations, I would generally meet the brigadier 
on his round of inspection, and no matter in what 
mood he was in I always had some story of strafe 
to tell him that would crease his face in smiles, 
and I saved many another officer from the bully- 
ing that was coming his way. 

i86 



DAYS AND NIGHTS OF STRAFE 187 

Our brigadier was very popular because of his 
personal bravery. One morning I was showing 
him the remains of some Germans I had blown 
up, and in his eagerness he stuck his head and 
shoulders, red tabs and all, over the trenches, 
when — ^ping ! — a sniper's bullet struck the bag 
within an inch of his head and covered him with 
dirt. "Pompey" roared with laughter and was 
in good himior for the rest of the day. On one 
occasion in Egypt this same General issued orders 
that no men were to wear caps. He said he didn't 
care where we got hats from, but that we were 
all old enough soldiers to obtain one somehow. 
He would punish any soldier who appeared on 
parade next day without a hat, and the only one 
whose head was minus a hat next morning was 
the brigadier himself ! He laughed and said that 
the man who pinched his hat had better not get 
caught, that's all ! 

My chief business as intelligence officer was to 
keep an eye on Fritz and find out what he was 
up to. I had a squad of trained observers who 
were posted in certain vantage-points called O. 
Pips (O. P.— Observation Post). These O. Pips 
were mostly on top of tall trees or the top of some 
old ruined farmhouse. From these "pozzies" 
(positions) a good deal of the country behind 
the enemy lines could be seen, and the observers, 
who were given frequent reliefs so that they would 
not become stale, had their eyes glued to it through 



i88 "OVER THERE" 

a telescope. Every single thing that happened 
was written down, including the velocity and 
direction of the wind; the information from all 
these and other sources being summarized by 
myself into a daily report for G. H. Q. 

There was one O. Pip on top of a crazy ruin 
that was used for many months without the Ger- 
mans suspecting. It really hardly looked as if 
it would support the weight of a sparrow. I used 
to wonder oftentimes how I was going to get up 
there, and then by force of habit would find my- 
self lying alongside the observer sheltering be- 
hind two or three bricks. From this pozzie one 
of my boys saw a German Staff car pass Crucifix 
Comer. This was a stretch of a hundred yards 
of road which we could plainly see where a crucifix 
was standing, though the church that once cov- 
ered it had been entirely destroyed. The car was 
judged to contain some officers of very high rank, 
both from the style of the car and the colors of 
the uniforms. When I got this information I 
prepared to make that road unhealthy in case 
they should return. I called up our sniping bat- 
tery, and got them to range a shell to be sure 
they would not miss. At five o'clock in the after- 
noon my waiting was rewarded, and just by the 
pressing of a button eight shells landed on that 
car, and sent its occupants ''down to the father- 
land." We received news about that time that 
one of the Kaiser's sons was killed, and though 



DAYS AND NIGHTS OF STRAFE 189 

it was denied later, in my dreams I often fancy 
that he might have been in that car. 

There was a landmark behind the German 
lines in this sector known as "the hole in the 
wall." It was marked on all onr maps used by 
the artillery for ranging, and was the object on 
which we set our zero lines to get bearings of 
other objects. One day "the hole in the wall" 
disappeared, and there was much wailing and 
gnashing of teeth. Did the Germans destroy it 
or was it the rats that undermined its founda- 
tions ? I fancy it was like the celebrated "One 
Horse Shay" — every brick in the wall that sur- 
rounded the hole had been wearing away for 
years, and at the stroke of Fate all crumbled into 
dust. We were able to do without our old friend, 
as Fritz very kindly built up in the churchyard 
at Fromelles a large red earthwork that could 
be seen for miles, and which our big guns sought 
unsuccessfully to destroy but made the entrance 
to it very unhealthy. 

We had some crack sharpshooters or snipers in 
trees and also on top of ruins, but took care never 
to have them near our observation posts lest they 
should draw fire. I had one man who was a King's 
prize-winner, and he must have accounted for 
well over a hundred of the enemy, some of whom 
may have thought themselves quite secure when 
they exposed but a portion of their body eight 
hundred or a thousand yards from our trenches. 



I90 "OVER THERE" 

Through the wasting of skilled men in unsuitable 
work which is prevalent in all our armies, this 
man was sent forward in a bayonet charge and 
killed. In his own job he was worth a battalion 
but in a charge of no more value than any other 
man. The snipers and observers make effective use 
of camotiflage, and have uniforms and rifle-covers 
to blend with their background — spotted for 
work among trees with foliage, a la Mr. Leopard 
— striped when in long grass or crops like Stripes 
of the jungle. We have suits resembling the bark 
of a tree, and some earth-colored for ploughed 
ground, also one made from sand-bags for the top 
of the parapet. 

I could fill a volimie with the happenings dur- 
ing our many months in these trenches. 

We had great sport through the use of a dimimy 
trench. This was a ditch which we dug about 
seventy-five yards behind oiu* front line nmning 
parallel to it. We would light fires in this about 
meal-times, and now and again during the day 
send a file of men along it who would occasionally 
expose their bayonets to view above the top. 
This ditch would appear to the German aero- 
planes exactly like a trench, and as they used 
their second line for a supervision and living trench 
they probably thought we did the same. Our 
boys laughed to see most of the German shells 
exploding on the dummy trench. 

There were one or two occasions in which Fritz 



DAYS AND NIGHTS OF STRAFE 191 

broke the unwritten law that there should be an 
armistice during meal-times. We soon cured him 
of this, however, as we systematically for a week 
put out his cook's fires with rifle-grenades. There- 
after both sides were able to have their meals 
in peace though we took care to change our hour 
from one to two instead of twelve to one. 

Fritz's system now and again got on our nerves. 
It was deadly monotonous, always knowing when 
his severest shelling would start and I have known 
the boys run races with the shells, driven to take 
foolish risks by sheer enntii. We always expected 
some shells on *'V. C. House" at 4 p. m., and were 
rarely disappointed. The men off duty would 
assemble in front of the old house and at the sound 
of the first shell race for the shelter of a dugout 
about a himdred yards away. Generally they 
would all timible in together and in their excite- 
ment could not decide who won the race, and so 
would have it all over again. The officers were 
ordered to stop these "races with death" for there 
were some killed, but they would break out now 
and again when the last man who was killed had 
been forgotten. 

The bombing officer had a good deal of sport 
with his rifle-grenades, and as I was hand in 
glove with him I enjoyed some of his fim. A 
favorite place for the firing of our rifle-grenades 
was at Devon Avenue, for most of Fritz's retalia- 
tion came to the Tommies whose flank joined 



192 "OVER THERE '♦ 

ours at this point. One day their major came 
along to us in a great rage, and wanted to know 
why we were always stirring up trouble — couldn't 
we let well enough alone? He complained in 
the end to our brigadier, but the answer he got 
was: *'What are you there for? What's your 
business?" After this, whenever we had our 
strafe on this flank, they would squeeze up to 
their centre leaving fifty yards immanned be- 
tween us. These men were brave enough, and 
in a raid the same major held the trench with 
great bravery under a severe bombardment and 
attack by a strong force. 

We also had an armored train that we were 
very proud of. At least, that is what we called 
it, but it was only a little truck with six rifles fast- 
ened on it for firing grenades. We ran this along 
rails down the trench, and would fire a salvo from 
one place and then move to another by the time 
Fritz had waked up and was replying with ''pine- 
apples and flying-fish," as his rifle-grenades were 
dubbed. 

One day I was ordered to locate the enemy's 
**minenwerfer" positions, as his ''minnies" were 
getting on our nerves. These huge shells, al- 
though they very seldom caused casualties, for 
they are very inaccurate, would nevertheless 
make the ground tremble for miles as they buried 
themselves sometimes fifty feet deep in the soft 
ground before they exploded. When these were 



DAYS AND NIGHTS OF STRAFE 193 

about our boys would watch for them as they 
could plainly be seen in the air. We would watch 
their ascent, sometimes partly through a cloud, 
and, as the shell wabbled a good deal, we could 
not be exactly sure where it was going to land 
imtil it was on the downward ciirve, then we 
would scatter like sheep, and as it would gen- 
erally be two or three seconds before it went off, 
we had time to reach a safe distance. The real 
trouble was that no one could sleep when they 
were coming over, as each of them had all the 
force of an earthquake. I have picked up pieces 
of the shell two feet long by a foot wide, jagged 
like a piece of galvanized iron that had been cut 
off with an axe. 

Well, I had to locate the position of these 
mine-throwers, and the easiest way to do it was 
to make them fire and have observers at different 
points to get bearings on the exact position from 
which the shells were thrown. They were easy 
to see, as they were accompanied for the first 
fifty yards with showers of sparks like sky- 
rockets. But Fritz can be very obstinate on 
occasions, and all oiu* teasing with rifle-grenades 
failed to make him retaliate with anything larger 
than ^'pineapples" (light trench -mortars). In 
desperation, I sent to the brigade bombing officer 
for some smoke and gas-bombs. Even these 
failed to rouse his anger sufficiently when — Eu- 
reka! — ^we discovered some "lachrymose" or 



194 **OVER THERE" 

*'tear" bombs. These did the trick and over 
came a *' rum- jar" as the "minnie" shells are 
generally called. I had eight batteries on the 
wire, and we gave that ''minnie" position a 
pretty warm time. By the same methods I 
located nine of these German trench-mortars on 
that front. Later on we captured one of them 
and I was surprised to see what a primitive affair 
it was. It consisted of a huge pipe made of 
wooden staves bound round and round with wire. 
The charge is in a can like an oil-drum and 
dropped in the pipe, and then the shell dropped 
in on top of it. A fuse is attached, burning 
several seconds so as to allow the crew to get 
well out of the way, as their risk is as great as 
those they fire it at. When I had seen the gun, 
I was not surprised that rarely did they know 
within a hundred yards of where the shell was 
going to land, only expecting to get it somewhere 
behind oiu* lines. 

While I am talking of trench-mortars, I must 
tell you about the ** blind pig." This was a huge 
shell with which we frequently got on Fritz's 
nerves. When it was first used there was some 
doubt about its accuracy and the infantry were 
cleared out of the trenches in its immediate front 
before it was fired. The first shot landed on our 
support trenches, the next in No Man's Land, 
and the third on Fritz's front line. Each time 
it seemed as if a double-powered Vesuvius were 



DAYS AND NIGHTS OF STRAFE 195 

in eruption, and when the artillery got to know 
its pranks there was no need for us to get out 
from under. The aeroplanes reported that when 
the "blind pigs" went over, some Fritzes could 
be seen running half an hour afterward. Fritz 
does not like anything new; for example, they ap- 
pealed to the world against our brutality in using 
"tanks." Christmas Day, 191 6, one of our avia- 
tors, with total disregard of the rules of war, 
dropped a football on which was painted "A 
Merry Xmas" into a French town infested by 
Germans. As it struck the street and bounced 
up higher than the roofs they could be seen scut- 
tling like rats, and maybe, to-day, that airman 
is haunted by the ghosts of those who died of 
heart-failure as a result of his fiendishness. 

This airman is a well-known character among 
the troops in Flanders, known to all as "the mad 
major." His evening recreation consists in fly- 
ing but a few hundred feet above the enemy's 
trenches, and raking them with his machine-gun 
to show his absolute contempt for their marks- 
manship. I have seen them in impotent fury 
fire at him every missile they had, including "pine- 
apples" and "minnies"; but he bears a charmed 
life, for, though he returned and repeated his per- 
formance foiu" times for oiu: benefit, he did not 
receive a scratch. I went over the German lines 
with him for instruction in aerial observation. 
He said to me: "Do you see that battery down 



196 "OVER THERE 



»> 



there ?" I replied **No !" His next remark was, 
*'I'll take you down," and he shot down about 
five hundred feet nearer. We were getting pasted 
by ''archies'* much more than was pleasant, so 
when he next shut off his engine, to speak to me, 
I did not wait for his question but assured him 
that I could see the German battery quite plainly. 
I hope the recording angel will take into account 
the extenuating circumstances of that lie. 

We had a * 'spring gun " or "catapult " that came 
very near preventing this book ever being written. 
On one occasion we placed a bomb in the cup, 
but instead of taking the spring and lever out, 
which was the correct way, we tried a new ex- 
periment of holding the lever down with two nails 
which would release the spring as soon as it was 
let off. Unfortunately, the bomb rolled off at 
our feet, and we had four seconds to get to a safe 
distance. Some of us got bad bruises on oiu- fore- 
heads as we dived for an open dugout as though 
we ourselves had been thrown from a catapult. 
On another occasion we used Mills grenades with 
a grooved base plug. To our alarm, the first 
one exploded with a beautiful shrapnel effect 
just above our heads. I am sure a piece passed 
through my hair but I could not wear a gold braid 
for a woimd because, not even with a candle, 
could the doctor find a mark. 

Our tunnellers were always mining and we 
would see them by day and night disappearing 



DAYS AND NIGHTS OF STRAFE 197 

into mysterious holes in the ground, and it was 
only when Messines Ridge disappeared in fine 
dust that we understood that their groping in 
underground passages was not in vain. They 
would sometimes tell us exciting tales of fights 
in the dark with picks against enemy miners; 
and now and again we would be roused by ex- 
plosions when one side blew in on the other and 
formed a new crater in No Man's Land. With 
their instruments our miners discovered that 
the head of one of the enemy galleries was under 
the headquarters dugout of the English regiment 
on our right. I went along to inform them. With 
excitement in my voice I said to the officer in 
charge: "Do you know that there is a mine under 
here ?" **Bai Jove, how jolly interesting ! Come 
and have a drink." I said: "Not in here, thank 
you." *' Why ? It won't go off to-day," he said. 
** Anyway, we are being relieved to-morrow, so it 
won't worry us, but we'll be sure and leave word 
for the other bHghters." 

There was a dugout in our own sector in which 
were heard mysterious tappings, but though we 
had an experienced miner sleep in it he reported 
that the soimds were not those of mining opera- 
tions. Maybe it was the rats, but we gave that 
dugout a wide berth, as some one suggested that 
it was haunted, and even in the trenches, better 
the devil you know than the devil you don't 
know! 



198 "OVER THERE'* 

We managed to have a good deal of comfort 
in these trenches, all things considered. We even 
rigged up hot baths in our second line. The men 
were able every second day to have a hot bath, 
get clean underclothing, and have a red-hot iron 
passed over their imiforms, which was the only 
effective method I have known of keeping us 
reasonably free from body-vermin. These baths 
turned us out like new men, as the AustraHan 
craves his daily shower. I doubt if there are 
any troops in the world who take such pains for 
cleanliness. Wherever we camp we rig up our 
shower-baths as a first essential, and in some of 
the French villages the natives would gather round 
these Hessian enclosed booths staring at the bare 
legs showing beneath and jabbering excitedly 
about the madness of these people who were so 
dirty that they needed a bath every day. 

Although this sector of trench was during eight 
months known as "a quiet front," as no actual 
offensive took place, yet there was never a day 
or night free from peril, and all the time our 
strength in numbers was being sapped — men 
left us "going west" or said good-bye as they 
went to hospital, and sometimes would disappear 
in No Man's Land — ^gone, none knew where. We 
received reinforcements that did not keep pace 
with our losses and during all the time were never 
once up to half strength. Always we were on 
the watch to worst our enemy, and he was by 



DAYS AND NIGHTS OF STRAFE 199 

no means napping. Gas was often used and sen- 
tries were posted with gas alarm-signals not only 
in the trenches but in the streets of the villages 
behind the lines. If by night or day the whitish 
vapor was seen ascending from the trenches op- 
posite, then such a hullabaloo of noises would 
pass along the trenches and through the streets 
of the towns as to make the spirits of the bravest 
quail, and woe betide even the little child who 
at that signal did not instantly cover his face 
with the hideous gas-mask. These noises were 
made chiefly with klaxon horns, though an empty 
shell-case struck by iron was found to give out 
a ringing sound that could plainly be heard above 
even the screech and crump of the shells. 

Oiu: gas-masks are quite efficient protection, 
and I have been a whole day under gas without 
injury, by keeping the cloth in my mask damp 
all the time. Men sometimes lose their lives 
through lack of confidence in their masks. The 
chemical causes an irritation of the mucous mem- 
brane, and they fancy they are being gassed, and 
in desperation tear them off. It is the duty of 
an officer to decide when the danger has passed 
and test the air. I remember on one occasion 
I warned some men who were opening their coats 
that the danger had not passed, but when I re- 
turned I foimd they had removed their masks and 
three of them were very severely gassed. We are 
always on the lookout for gas, and when the wind 



200 , "OVER THERE" 

is dangerous a "gas-alert" signal is given, when 
every man wears his mask in a ready position so 
that it can be donned without a second's delay. 

I was really sorry to leave those trenches. So 
many months was I there that they were some- 
thing like a home to me, and who knew what 
was awaiting one in another and an unknown 
section? I knew every shell-hole in No Man's 
Land, and constant observation of the enemy 
methods enabled me to anticipate his moves. 
I felt that nowhere else would I be so successful. 
I even parted with a rat that I had tamed in 
my dugout with a feeling of regret, though on 
all his kin I waged a bitter war, spending many 
hours when I ought to have been sleeping in shoot- 
ing them with my automatic as they came into 
the light of the dugout doorway. It was there, 
too, that I experimented with the enemy grenades, 
and I remember once nearly scaring an Austra- 
lian nigger white. He was the only colored man 
in our brigade, and was just passing in front of 
the dugout as I threw a detonator on to the hard 
metal of an old road a few yards away. Evidently 
he was surprised at being bombed when he thought 
he was among friends! He, however, received 
nothing worse than the fright. 



CHAPTER XXI 
THE VILLAGE OF SLEEP 

There was little element of surprise about 
the "Somme" offensive. Although there must 
have been some xmcertainty in the mind of the 
German Staff as to just where the blow would 
be struck, for our papers were filled with rumors 
of a drive in the north, and troops and big guns 
were moved north every day and withdrawn at 
night, yet the intensity of the artillery bombard- 
ment around Albert, which day by day waxed 
ever greater, proclaimed in a shout that here was 
the point on which our punch would strike. 

The selection of this place for an offensive was 
an indication that it was not the policy of the 
Allies to attempt to drive the German army out 
of France, but that their evident intention was 
to defeat the enemy practically in the present 
trenches. The German line in France and Bel- 
gium is shaped like the letter L, and the Somme 
battle was waged at the angle of the letter just 
where the line was farthest from Germany. Of 
cotirse it would be madness to attempt to finish 
the war on German soil, if to do it we should 
have to devastate one-eighth of France and its 
fairest and richest province. 

201 



202 "OVER THERE" 

These smashes are rapidly destroying the mo- 
rale of the enemy, as well as killing many of 
them, and will lead to the collapse of the army 
pretty much where they are now. If they at- 
tempt an offensive on the western front, where 
otir armament is now so strong, it will hasten 
the end. The British artillery had at the end 
of 191 7 a reserve of fifty million of shells, and 
pity help the German army if they bump into 
them. The British offensive of 1916 was hast- 
ened somewhat by the need of relieving the 
pressure on Verdim, and though the first blow 
was not as powerful as it would have been if de- 
layed a few months, it accomplished much more 
than was expected. 

Up the British line there crept news of big 
doings down south. There was a new soimd in 
the air — a distant continued thunder that was 
different from any previous soimd — the big drums 
of the devil's orchestra were booming an accom- 
paniment that was the motif of hell's cantata. 
Up the line ran the nmior of a battle intenser 
than any yet fought — more guns being massed 
in a few miles than the world had ever seen be- 
fore. Into every heart crept the dread of what 
might await us down there, and to every mind 
came the question: "When are we going?" 

Close behind rumor came marching orders, and 
as we left otir old trenches south of Armenti^res 
we said good-bye to scenes that had become 



THE VILLAGE OF SLEEP 203 

homelike, and turned our faces south to make 
that "rendezvous with death" in the dread im- 
known to which duty called us. 

But there were weeks of peaceful scenes that 
seemed to us like a forgotten melody of love and 
home and peace, and the train that bore us out 
of the war zone seemed to carry us into another 
world, but though the feast to our eyes was pleas- 
ant and Hke "far-off forgotten things and pleasiu*es 
long ago," we were not borne thither on downy 
couches. Never were there seats more imcom- 
fortable than the floors of those French trucks, 
and we occupied them for days. When now and 
again the train stopped and we could unbend 
oiirselves for a short stroll, it was like the interval 
in a dull play. We had taken otir cookers with 
us on the train, but the French railway authori- 
ties would not allow us to have a fire burning 
while the train was moving, so we would have to 
draw onto a siding that our meals might be cooked. 
Now and again at these stops there would be 
canteens run by English and American women, 
and the home-cooking and delicacies they smil- 
ingly gave us were a reminder of the barracking 
of the womenfolk that makes courage and en- 
durance of men possible. These are the untir- 
ing heroines that uphold our hands till victory 
shall come, and so the women fight on. There 
were French women, too, who brought us fruit 
and gingerbread, and with eyes and strange 



204 "OVER THERE" 

tongue iinbtirdened hearts full of gratitude and 
prayer. 

How glad we were to gaze on the earth, smiling 
through fields of waving com and laughing with 
peaceful homes, with the church-spires still point- 
ing heavenward, after so many months of as- 
sociating with the scars of blackened fields and 
the running sores festering on earth's bosom, once 
so fair, where churches had swooned and in lost 
hope laid their finger in the dust. 

But all journeys end in time, and one night 
instead of eating we loaded ourselves like the 
donkeys in Egypt and tramped off to the village 
of our sojourning. The billeting officer and guide 
were several days ahead of us and they met us 
at the train and told us it was only three miles 
to the village, but after we had tramped five we 
lost all faith in their knowledge of distance. It 
was ''tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are march- 
ing, " for three miles more, and when we had given 
up all hope of eating or resting again we saw, at 
the bottom of a hill, silhouetted against the violet 
sky the spire of a church, but we did not breathe 
otir hopes lest it might vanish like a dream. Soon 
we came to a house, and instinctively the column 
halted, but it was "On, on, ye brave !" yet a^little 
longer, then suddenly a company was snatched 
up by the darkness. Lucky dogs ! They had 
found some comer in which to curl up and sleep, 
which was all we longed for, as we were now too 



THE VILLAGE OF SLEEP 205 

tired to even care about eating. Chunk after 
chunk was broken off the column and almost 
all were swallowed by stables and bams, or houses 
that were not much superior, when there loomed 
ahead some iron gates, and like the promise of a 
legacy came the news that this was the head- 
quarters billet; and never did the sight of four 
walls offer to weary man such a fortime of rest 
and shelter. 

In the morning we discovered we were in the 
village of Ailly-sous-Ailly, the sleepiest place on 
earth. It nestled at the bottom of a cup and 
was hidden by trees ; no passer in the skies would 
glimpse roof or street. No vehicle entered it 
from outside and the war was only hearsay. I 
think the hum of its labor can only be heard by 
the bees, and its drowsy evening prayers are 
barely audible to the angels. Its atmosphere 
crept over our spirits like ether and we did little 
else but sleep for the week that we were there. 
Parades would be ordered, but after a short time 
of drilling in the only field of the village, we would 
realize the sacrilege of our exertion, and the parade 
would be dismissed. Thereafter the only prepa- 
ration for the day ahead that was persisted in 
consisted of lectures, when the droning voice of 
the officer would frequently be accompanied by 
snores from his men. My duties were to give in- 
struction in scouting, but I seemed to be sounding 
a motor-horn in slumberland when I counselled 



2o6 "OVER THERE" 

my boys to '* always keep their eyes skinned" as 
the genie of the village was weighting their eye- 
lids with lead. I spoke in the language of different 
worlds when I said: "A scout's body should never 
be seen to move" (and the village hummed its 
applause), "but his eyes should be never still — '* 
(and there was almost a hiss that came through 
the trees). 

For the first day or two we did not see the in- 
habitants of the village at all. Much puzzled 
at this we questioned the maire, and he told us 
that they were very much afraid because we were 
Australians — that there had been much alarm 
when they heard we were coming. Perhaps they 
thought we were black, and into their dulled ears 
had crept a whisper of the fierceness in battle 
of these giants called "Anzac." It was not long, 
however, before curiosity drew them from their 
hiding-places and our laughing good nature won 
their confidence. It was not surprising that our 
lavish spending of money should have roused 
their cupidity, for never had they seen so much 
wealth before, and never had we seen such poverty. 
Any of our privates was able to buy out the stock 
of a whole store, which was not worth more than a 
poimd or two. One of them, to satisfy his hunger, 
on the first night walked into one of these stores, 
but when he saw the stock his face was a picture 
of blank disappointment. "I want something to 
eat," he said, "and I think I'll take all you've 



THE VILLAGE OF SLEEP 207 

got. It may make a fruit salad or something." 
There were only one or two that could converse 
with us in anything but a language of signs, but 
the old maire spoke EngHsh of the kind that 
Queen Elizabeth used, and he acted as interpreter 
for the whole village. 

When they understood that we were willing 
to pay for any damage done, the bills came in in 
sheaves. Some boys, in ignorance, cut up for 
firewood an old cedar log that was an heirloom. 
You would have thought it was made of gold 
from the value put upon it by its owner. Fifteen 
francs was asked for a bundle of straw that some 
boys made a bed of, and some of our AustraHan 
horses did not know any better than to eat the 
thatch off one old lady's bedroom, which not only 
cost us the price of the thatch when it was new 
but also damages for fright. There was a gap 
in the hedge that I had noticed when we entered 
the town, but it cost us ten francs all the same. 
These people were not impatriotic, but to them 
it looked like the chance of a lifetime to acquire 
wealth, and I have no doubt we pensioned sev- 
eral of them for life. 

The war was to them like a catastrophe in an- 
other world, and Australians did not travel farther 
to fight than in their imagination did the sons 
of this village when they went to the trenches 
less than a hundred miles away. I discovered 
one day how deep the knife of war had cut when 



2o8 "OVER THERE 



9» 



I Spoke to a grandmother and daughter working 
a large farm, as with dumb, uncomprehending 
pain in their eyes they showed me the picture of 
son-in-law and husband who would never rettirn. 
Rights of peoples and the things for which na- 
tions strive had no meaning to these two, but 
from out the dark had come a hand and dragged 
from them the fulness of life, leaving only its 
empty shell. 

Our headquarters billet was in the vacated 
house of the village squire. He was a major in 
the French army, and had taken with him the 
young men of the village committed to his charge. 
His wife had gone to nurse in a hospital and they 
had put their children in a convent. He then 
left the key in his door, saying that his house and 
its contents were at the service of the officers of 
any British regiment that should come that way. 
This house was a baronial castle, but in its furnish- 
ing knew as little of modem conveniences as 
Hampden Court of William IV. We did not 
smile, however, at the antimacassars, wax flowers, 
and samplers, nor the scattered toys of the 
nursery, for we were guests of a kindly host who, 
though absent himself, had intrusted to our care 
his household gods and was a comrade in arms. 

Houses, especially old houses, absorbed the per- 
sonality of the dwellers therein, and I fancy that 
our host is not unknown to me. Were I to meet 
him I would recognize him at once, for his spirit 



THE VILLAGE OF SLEEP 209 

dwelt with us in his home, and my prayer is that 
when he returns he will not find that temple tainted 
by the spirit of any alien who occupied it in his 
absence. 

The village church slumbered in the centre of 
the village, and was its sluggish heart. No dis- 
cord or schism of sect or creed ever disturbed its 
atmosphere. Unquestioned was its hold on the 
faith of men, women, and children. Not more 
quietly did the dead rest beneath the stones of 
the churchyard than did the worshippers who 
knelt before the carved wooden images of the 
saints, trusting in their protection and receiving 
from their placid immobility a benediction of 
peace. The cure from a neighboring town only vis- 
ited the village once a quarter, and the old lady 
who kept the key was very reluctant to let us in; 
but when the maire knew of our desire, he brought 
us the key that we might view it at our leisure. 
Its pews were thick with dust, the images were 
chipped and broken, some saints were minus 
nose or arm, the vestments in the open cupboard 
were moth-eaten and tawdry, dried flowers lay 
on tombs of the village great ; but its atmosphere 
was one of peace, and it was not difficult to realize 
that many had carried therein their burden of 
grief and imrest and left it behind them, soothed 
on the bosom of Mother Church, like a fretting 
child. 

But it is not the business of soldiers to sleep, 



2IO "OVER THERE" 

and suddenly came the awakening with the 
sound of the hundreds of motor-buses that were 
to carry us into the noise and devastation of 
hell ! We marched up to the rim of the village, 
and amid the smell of gasolene, the tooting of 
the horns, and the roar of the engines we boarded 
these, thirty to a bus, and rumbled on toward 
the greatest noise and flame and fire that has 
ever torn the atmosphere asunder, outdoing any 
earthquake, thunderstorm, or tornado that nature 
has ever visited upon humanity. 

On this journey we saw more of the tremendous 
organization needed to equip and feed an army 
than we had been able to visualize before. For 
thirty miles we were a part of a stream of motor 
vehicles flowing in one direction passing a never- 
ending stream going the other way. Through the 
city of Amiens we went without stopping. With 
longing eyes we gazed from the buses which 
hours of btmiping and rolling on poor roads had 
made to us torture-chambers. How gladly would 
we have strolled through its streets gazing on 
the pretty girls and gaping at the novelty of its 
quaint buildings and the imusual ware in its 
shop- windows. 

Later on I was a week in the hospital here 
with a sprained anlde, and I had a chance to 
explore this lovely city of Picardy. Its cathedral 
was a never-ending source of interest, and not 
a day passed during my stay that I did not hob- 



THE VILLAGE OF SLEEP 211 

ble on crutches through its dim aisles and wor- 
ship the beauty of its statues. There is one 
statue called "The Weeping Angel" which is 
world-famous, and I have gazed at it for hours, 
feeling its beauty steal over me like a psalm. There 
was always music stealing gently through the air, 
but like a blow in the face were the walls of sand- 
bags protecting the carving on the choir-stalls 
and the thousands of statues on the huge doors. 
The grotesque hideousness of the gargoyles gave 
a touch of hirnior that was not incongruous to 
religion, but these sand-bags were such an eye- 
sore against the beauty of the carved poems that 
suggested what an intrusion into God's fair world 
is the horror of war. 

Several times while I was in Amiens the Ger- 
man aeroplanes came over and bombed the city. 
Opposite the hospital a three-story house col- 
lapsed like a pack of cards, btuying seventeen 
people in its ruins. I saw a French airman bring 
down one boche by a clever feat. He evidently 
could not aim upward to his satisfaction, so 
he turned upside down, and while flying thus, 
brought down his opponent. 

Through Amiens the buses carried us within 
a few miles of Albert, which was within range of 
the German artillery. It is in Albert that the 
remarkable "hanging Virgin" is to be seen. The 
cathedral and tower have been almost practically 
destroyed, but still on top of the tower remains 



212 "OVER THERE" 

uninjured the figure of the Virgin and Child. A 
shell has struck its base, and over the town at 
right angles to the tower leans the Virgin im- 
ploringly holding the babe outstretched as though 
she were supplicating its protection. The French 
people say that the statue will fall when the war 
ends, but some materialistic British engineers, 
fearing the danger to life in its fall, have shored 
and braced it up. 

This is similar to the miracles of the crucifixes 
that are found standing unharmed amid scenes 
of desolation. I have seen several of them with- 
out a bullet mark upon them when every building 
in the vicinity has been laid in ruins. I know 
two cases in which there is not one stone remain- 
ing of the chiu-ch, yet the crucifix that was inside 
stands in imtouched security. There are always 
those who see in these things a supernatural agency 
as some saw "angels at Mons," and as for me I do 
not seek to explain them, knowing that there are 
more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed 
of in our philosophy. 

I am reluctant to leave this chapter with its 
peaceful memories, for it is the antechamber of 
hell. There is little here that hints of the brim- 
stone and fire just through the door. But our 
path lies that way and we must pass on. 



CHAPTER XXII 
THE SOMME 

The battle of the Somme lasted eight months, 
and never since the days of chaos and darkness 
has a portion of the earth been under the sway 
of such forces of destruction. Not even the Flood 
itself so completely destroyed the habitations of 
man. Flourishing towns were powdered into brick- 
dust, thousands of acres of forest were reduced 
to a few blackened stumps, and every foot of 
ground was blasted and churned and battered 
again, while every yard was sown thick with bullets 
more malignant than the seeds planted by Jason. 
To-day nature is busy trying to hide the evidence 
of the hate of man, and long grass and poppies 
cover the blackened soil and grow in the shell- 
holes, imtil only in the memory of the men who 
strove nakedly in its desolation and death will 
the knowledge of that area as it was for those 
eight long months remain. If he visits it again 
the poppies and the grass will fade, and it will 
appear to him once more as the ploughed land of 
demons, and grinning at him in every yard will 
be the skulls of the countless unburied that there 
lie. The other birds will shun it, for there are 
no trees, but the lark will still sing on, as this 

213 



214 "OVER THERE" 

brave-hearted bird continues to do even when the 
guns are booming. 

Australian blood has sanctified much of that 
soil, and Australian bravery has monopolized 
some of its names. As surely as GallipoH will 
Pozieres and Thiepval and Bapaume be asso- 
ciated with the name and achievement of Aus- 
tralians in the minds of readers of the history of 
the great war. These are places that will ever 
be names of honor and glory in the thought of 
the Australian people as will be Flers to New 
Zealand and Delville Wood to South Africa. 

At Pozieres the First and Second Divisions 
demonstrated that the abandon and tenacity 
against odds that secured a footing on the Gal- 
lipoH Peninsula was still the special prerogative 
of the care-free lads from these South Sea nations. 
Our own artillery was unable effectively to silence 
the fire of the German batteries, and wave after 
wave melted like snow in the sun, yet the uncon- 
querable spirit drove the remainder on until the 
positions were taken and held. There were 
wounded men who dragged themselves, not back 
to their own lines for attention, but forward toward 
the enemy so that they might be able to strike 
at least one blow ere they died. There were others 
that had their wounds dressed and then returned 
to the fighting. No one left the line that day 
who could help it, or his name would have been 
remembered as an outstanding exception among 



THE SOMME 215 

the many who, wounded again and again, and 
faint from loss of blood, still fought on. This 
engagement carved a line in my own heart, for 
therein died three comrades who enlisted with 
me, and our souls were grappled together by 
many common dangers shared and mutual sacri- 
fices cheerfully made. There is no life in the 
world that tries out friendship like a soldier's 
in active service, and when it has endured that, 
it is stronger than the love of twin for twin, like 
the love of David and Jonathan, of Damon and 
Pythias, a love that passeth knowledge. 

The Germans had one ally on the Somme that 
wrought us more havoc than all his armament. 
How we cursed that mud ! We cursed it sleeping, 
we cursed it waking, we cursed it riding, we cursed 
it walking. We ate it and cursed; we drank it 
and cursed; we swallowed it and spat it; we 
snuffed it and wept it; it filled our nails and our 
ears; it caked and lined our clothing; we wallowed 
in it, we waded through it, we swam in it, and 
splashed it about — ^it stuck our helmets to oiu* 
hair, it plastered our wounds, and there were 
men drowned in it. Oh, mud, thou daughter of 
the devil, thou offspring of evil, back to your 
infernal regions, and invade the lowest circle of 
the inferno that you may make a fit abiding-place 
for the slacker and pacifist ! I take back all I said 
about the sand of Egypt. It was a mere irritant 
compared with this mud. I am sorry for the 



2i6 "OVER THERE" 

times I have been out of temper with the mud 
back in Australia, when it clung to my boots in 
tons, when I have been bogged in a sulky in the 
''black soil" coimtry. Australia, you have no 
mud, just a little surface stickiness that I will 
never growl at again as long as I live: 

"It isn't the foe that we fear; 
It isn't the bullets that whine; 
It isn't the business career 
Of a shell, or the bust of a mine; 
It isn't the snipers who seek 
To nip our young hopes in the bud; 
No, it isn't the guns, 
And it isn't the Huns — 
It's the MUD, 

MUD, 

MUD."* 

Official reports of the later battles in 1918 
tell us that the shell-fire on the Somme was a 
mere popgtm show to these battles, but it is diffi- 
cult for the imagination to grasp this fact, as it 
did not seem then that the air had any room 
for more shells. In fact, I have seen shells meet 
in the air, both exploding together. It seemed 
to us at times as if there was not a foot of air 
that did not have a shell in it. In one battle 
there were four thousand guns firing over a five 
hundred yards front, the heavies being seventeen 
and a half miles behind the lines, and the field- 

* Robt. W. Service. 



THE SOMME 217 

guns massed wheel to wheel a hundred and fifty 
to the five hundred yards, and row after row like 
infantry drawn up for review. Shells not merely 
whistled and screamed overhead, they leaped from 
the ground beneath one's feet with a flame that 
burned, a roar that deafened, and a displacement 
of air that swept one away. At artillery practice 
in peace times there is great excitement if one 
lone man happens to be in front of the gun, but 
on the Somme we walked about among them, 
over them, and round them, and we were never 
warned even when they fired but a couple of yards 
away. One day a red-hot shell from a gun about 
fifty yards away landed at my feet, but, fortunate- 
ly, did not explode. For four months our artillery 
expended an average of half a million shells a 
day. The increase in artillery last year may be 
judged from the fact that in the last six months 
of 191 7 one million tons of shells were used by 
the British on the western front. By day the 
drum-fire of the guns beat on one's ears like a 
devil's tattoo imtil one felt that in another week 
reason would be unseated. But at night was 
added the horror of flame that drove away the 
darkness with a ruddy glare. It seemed as if 
thousands of Bessemer furnaces were refining 
metal for the paving of hell. Into this caldron 
of man's making that outdid the fury of the ele- 
ments yoimg lads from farms and shops walked 
uprightly. Like ants impotent in their strife 



2i8 **OVER THERE" 

they swarmed, and to a watcher from another 
world they must have appeared Hke insects in 
the crater of Vesuvius in eruption. Yet the mind 
of man, so much greater than his body, had or- 
ganized and planned this monstrous scene, and 
from his method it deviated not a hair's breadth. 

We were encouraged and supported by the 
knowledge that the German was having a far 
worse time than we were, that the hell of flame 
and fire and smoke was for our protection and 
his annihilation. His shells came over bhndly 
in most cases, and though we were so thick that 
they could not but get some of us, yet we knew 
that our shells were being directed by thousands 
of aeroplanes on top of the earth beneath which 
he huddled, with the sweat of fear pouring from 
him. There were many indications of the terror 
oin- shell-fire wrought and days when the prisoners 
could be counted in thousands, on one occasion 
sixteen men bringing back as many as foiu: him- 
dred. These men were imbeciles, crazed by the 
sound of the shells, and obsessed by one idea, the 
necessity of getting away. When we took their 
trenches we found that in most cases they were 
completely obliterated, and in some cases the en- 
trances to the deep dugouts were blown in, 
smothering the men sheltering in them. 

The wastage of man-power on the Somme was 
not a little due to the nervous strain. I think 
everybody's nerves were more or less on edge, and 



THE SOMME 219 

now and again a hurricane of fire would sweep 
the trenches because some man's nerve got past 
breaking-point. He would see an imaginary- 
enemy bearing down upon his sentry-post and 
fire wildly, giving alarm to the whole line. A 
German sentry would reply to him, more of our 
men would fire back, more Germans join in, star- 
shells make the night as brigl\t as day; then Fritz 
would "get the wind up" thoroughly and call 
for artillery support — our gims would blaze into 
reply and there would be many casualties just be- 
cause one man lost his nerve and "saw things." 
Nerves are queer things, for frequently the man 
of a nervous, highly strung temperament is the 
coolest in action. Some men, too, get shell-shock 
a hundred yards from a bursting shell, while others 
are knocked down and buried and never even 
tremble. Men have the power of speech taken 
from them for months and as suddenly have it 
restored. I know of one case in which a boy did 
not speak a word for twelve months, and when 
viewing the play "Under Fire" in Sydney sud- 
denly found his speech return at the sound of a 
shot. Anoth^er man had just been pronounced 
by the medical officer as cured when the back- 
fire of a motor-car heard in the streets of Mel- 
bourne brought back all the symptoms of shell- 
shock again. Once a man has had shell-shock 
he is never of any use imder shell-fire again, 
although he might be quite brave under any other 



220 "OVER THERE" 

fire and suffer no ill effects in civil life. Where 
there is so much shell-fire the observation of the 
German sentries is very poor and surprise raids 
are easily carried out. Fritz is very reluctant to 
put his head up and periscopes are always being 
smashed. 

There was only one place in the Somme where 
drinking-water could be obtained, and this was 
in the ruins of the town of Flers. The Germans 
had been driven out of this place too quickly to 
give them time to poison the water, but they 
made it very difficult for us to get at it by shelling 
continually. They had the exact range, and it 
was only in the hour before dawn that one could 
get near the wells without meeting with certain 
death. It was amusing to see the scamper of 
the water-carriers out of the ruins as the first 
shell annoimced that the relief of Fritz's batteries 
had been completed and the "hate" had recom- 
menced. They were severely handicapped running 
with a fifty-six pound can of water, but it was a 
point of honor not to leave this behind. Of course, 
there was plenty of other water filling every hole 
around, but this was not only thick with mud 
but had the germs of gas-gangrene, and one knows 
not how many other diseases besides. 

When the line had advanced a few miles ** going 
in" was as tiring a day's journey as though one 
had walked twenty miles. I will never forget 
having to chase after my brigade to Becordel- 



THE SOMME 221 

Becourt. I left Albert just at dark and had to 
trust to my instinct for direction in finding the 
place, for no one could tell me the way, and the 
old road on the map was non-existent. It was 
only about three miles, but seemed like thirty as 
I wound in and out of the traffic that jammed 
the new road, defying the passage of even a dog. 
When I arrived at the place where the town of 
Becordel had once been I fotind there were about 
five hundred thousand troops camped about the 
area, and in the dark to find the whereabout of 
my own imit of five thousand was about as hope- 
less a task as I have ever attempted. I inquired 
of more than a score, but no one had seen anything 
of the AustraHans. I wandered about for hours 
and was himgry and thirsty and half dead when 
I stumbled on a Y. M. C. A. hut. They could 
not guide me in the right way, but they gave me 
a cup of hot tea, and no nectar of the gods could 
be as welcome. The Y. M. C. A. is welcome 
to all the boosting I can give, for they were my 
salvation that night, and at other times were 
a comfort and resting-place. When I found our 
camp at two o'clock in the morning I found the 
men in a worse plight than I was, for their trans- 
port had not arrived, and none had had anything 
to eat or drink. 

In this huge camp which was within range 
of the German guns there were tens of thou- 
sands of camp-fires blazing in the open in utter 



222 "OVER THERE '• 

contempt of Fritz and his works. We took 
the road again that same morning for our posi- 
tion in reserve at Montauban. I said we took 
the road — ^well, we were on it sometimes, when- 
ever we could shove the horses toward the centre 
to enable us to squeeze past — otherwise we had 
to plough along above our knees in the soft mud. 
Even on the road the slush was up to our ankles, 
but it was metalled imdemeath. We discovered 
our transport in the jam of the traffic — they had 
taken twenty-four hours to go the four miles but 
our tongues blistered with the names we called 
them, and we threatened them with eternal dam- 
nation if they were not at the next camp with a 
h"Ot meal when we arrived. 

Where Montauban had once been we went 
into camp. We had no tents, but made our- 
selves comfortable in shell-holes, with a bitter-cold 
rain falHng, by stretching tarpaulins over them. 
The engineers were putting up Nissen huts at 
the rate of twenty a day, but as soon as the last 
bolt was screwed home, forty shelterless men 
crowded each one to capacity. It was some days 
before om* tmn came and we waited lying half- 
covered with mud and slush. When we did get 
a hut allotted to us it was as if we had been trans- 
ferred to a palace. These huts look like half of 
a round galvanized-iron tank, and were floored 
and lined. They were carried in numbered sec- 
tions and could be put together in a few minutes. 



THE SOMME 223 

They were very comfortable. You could stand 
up in the centre, and there was plenty of room 
to sleep along the sides. I believe the inventor, 
Mr. Nissen, is an American and here's my hand 
to him as an ally who maybe saved me from 
rheumatism, and I am sure thousands of boys 
from the other side of the world bless his name 
continually. 

The whole brigade was practically bogged when 
we came to move forward. The weight of our 
equipment sank us into the soft mud and the 
only way we got onto the road again was by hang- 
ing to the stirrups of the horses as they ploughed 
a way through. We also passed ropes back for 
the men to grasp and harnessed them to mules, 
and thus dragged them to firm groimd. The 
road did not carry us far, and we soon had to 
struggle across the open toward the support 
trenches. This was not as bad as rotmd the camp, 
not being chiuned up by the tramping about of 
men and horses. We could not use the commtmi- 
cation-trenches as they were rivers of liquid mud, 
but had to wait till dark and go over the top in 
relieving the front line. On this occasion we took 
over from the Grenadier Guards, which niunbers 
among its officers many of the English nobility. 
We "bushies" and "outbackers" from the Land 
of the Kangaroo stepped down into the mud- 
holes just vacated by an earl, several lords, and 
as noble and proud a regiment as ever won glory 



224 "OVER THERE" 

on a battle-field. The Prince of Wales was a 
staff-captain in the army of the Somme doing 
his bit in the mud and misery like the rest of us. 
There is no "sacred privilege that doth hedge 
about a king" in the British Empire, and King 
George is respected among us for his manliness, 
and we cheered him sincerely when he twice visited 
us in the trenches, for we do not believe to-day in 
the divine right of kings, neither do we believe 
in the divine right of majorities. 

In another chapter that tells of my woimding 
I have pictured oui days and weeks as lived in 
these trenches, so I will bring this chapter to a 
close by siimmarizing some of the things that the 
great push on the Somme accomplished. 

(i) It relieved the pressure on Verdim. 

(2) It accoimted for several hundred thousand 
German casualties. 

(3) It demonstrated our ability to break 
through. 

(4) It led to the perfecting of barrage-fire where- 
by casualties were reduced in our infantry to an 
astonishing degree. 

(5) It gave confidence to our troops by en- 
abling them to get to hand-grips with the Ger- 
man, and discover that he was individually no 
fighter. 

(6) It weakened the morale of the German 
army enormously, and convinced the German 
soldier that his cause was lost. 



THE SOMME 225 

(7) It gave to us possession of the high ground. 

(8) It definitely established our supremacy of 
the air, and was the turning-point of the whole 
war. 



CHAPTER XXIII 
THE ARMY'S PAIR OF EYES 

The aeroplane has become so much a necessity 
to the army that it is difficult to imagine how 
wars were ever fought without them. I remember 
reading a statement by a military observer with 
the Japanese army that, if the Russians had had 
a single aeroplane, they could have annihilated 
the Japs more than once. Of the army's pair 
of eyes the airman is the sharper, but the old- 
time scout is not by any means superseded, though 
his methods have changed. Just as there is much 
behind the enemy lines that only the aeroplanes 
can see, there are some things that cannot be dis- 
covered except from the level of fhe groimd along 
which the scout crawls. The airman makes the 
enemy's plans an open book, for he observes him 
'as soon as he moves, but the airman travels on a 
different plane from the infantry soldier, and it is 
the infantry man who fights out the final phase 
of the battle. The groimd has an altogether dif- 
ferent aspect from the air, and aeroplane photo- 
graphs sometimes mislead. The scout, however, 
goes ahead on the same ground that the infantry- 
have to travel, and he can bring back news of 

226 



THE ARMY'S PAIR OF EYES 227 

exactly what is there. The airmen do not help 
us much in determining the condition of the 
enemy's barbed wire, and nothing is so fatal for an 
attack as being held up on the wire. ''Streamer" 
wire cannot be seen a few yards away, and only 
by sending out advance scouting-parties can a 
commander know whether the wire has been suf- 
ficiently destroyed to allow an easy passage for 
his troops. As an attack is always planned to 
take two or three of the enemy's lines, these scouts 
have to find out the condition of the wire in front 
of the second or third line trenches as well. 

Crawling in No Man's Land and behind the Ger- 
man lines is not as dangerous as it sounds. The 
greatest cause of casualties is shell-fire and the 
scout is safe from this, for, naturally, no enemy 
shells fall near him in enemy territory, and he 
has previously arranged with his own artillery 
to withhold fire from the sector in which he is 
working. He runs little risk even from machine- 
guns or rifles, for the groimd is so honeycombed 
with shell-holes that he is nearly all the time in 
good cover. The only danger that he runs is 
that of discovery, and for a properly trained scout 
such is inexcusable. 

The general idea the stay-at-home has of the 
trenches is that every yard contains a man who is 
watching out for signs of the enemy. But a 
trench is serrated with bays containing half a 
dozen men who are cut off from sight of their neigh- 



228 "OVER THERE'* 

bors. Of these half-dozen men one or, at most, 
two are on the lookout while the others are sleep- 
ing, and a well-placed hand-grenade will put the 
whole six of them out of action. Experience has 
shown that where there has been much shell-fire 
the sentry's observation is very lax, as men will 
not stick their heads above the trenches any more 
than they can help and at night periscopes are not 
much use. I have repeatedly come back into our 
own trenches from a night's excursion without 
being seen by our own sentries, and on two oc- 
casions, in the daytime. There are some sectors 
that are only held by battle outposts with gaps of 
fifty and a hundred yards without them. Of 
course, it is an easy matter to get past in these 
places. 

We have sometimes to get the artillery to make 
a way for us. We will have them bombard a 
himdred yards of German trench very heavily 
for about ten minutes while we lie within fifty 
yards waiting for the prearranged second when 
we will scuttle across; the enemy having been 
compelled to vacate that sector during the bom- 
bardment, it is some minutes before they realize 
that the shelling has ceased and return. 

Once behind the German front trench, the work 
is easy, for they never look behind or imagine 
that any of their enemies could be in their rear, 
and there is no observation from the second or 
third line trenches. On other occasions we do 



THE ARMY'S PAIR OF EYES 229 

without the help of the artillery, bombing a gap 
for ourselves. We arrange to have rifle-grenades 
fired along three hundred yards of trench except 
for fifty yards where is our gateway. Here we 
sneak up and carefully roll hand-grenades into 
two or three bays. The Germans on either side 
do not take any notice of these explosions as the 
same thing is happening all along the line, and 
the Germans in the bays are not in condition to 
take much notice either. We may have to ad- 
minister the "coup-de-grace" with our hand- 
bayonets. 

Getting back is fairly easy, for the sentry's 
back is toward us, and a scout should never have 
to strike twice. He may leave a Mills grenade 
with the pin out as a gift to the sleeping men in 
the bay. He only has a two or four-foot-wide 
trench to cross, and even if the alarm be given 
he is back among the million and two shell-holes 
of No Man's Land before any action can be taken: 
even though they bomb their front thoroughly 
the chances are in the scout's favor; though 
they make No Man's Land bright as day with 
star-shells and flares there are plenty of shell- 
holes deep enough to completely hide him from 
view. 

There is other important information that only 
the scout can obtain as when we once found a 
dummy trench filled with barbed wire and con- 
trolled by machine-guns. Had our men gone 



230 "OVER THERE" 

forward in the attack without the knowledge of 
this they would have jumped down into it to 
be massacred like rats in a trap. Machine- 
gun positions are also generally indistinguishable 
to the airman's glass or camera. I used an in- 
strument of my own construction which would 
give me the map reference of any object that I 
observed in relation to any other two objects 
the position of which I knew on the map. At 
night I would have the two known positions 
marked by distinguishing lights or have colored 
flares sent up from them at regular intervals. 

The training of our scouts is very severe. For 
in this work men have to have complete con- 
fidence in their own superiority to the German 
soldier, and must be able to depend entirely on 
their own resources as they generally have to 
work singly or in pairs. It is necessary that they 
be picked men with imusual keenness of observa- 
tion. They are trained for work in the dark by 
being made to go through the ordinary soldier's 
exercises bHndfolded. In this way they get the 
extra sense that a blind man has. A blind man 
will not put his weight onto his foot imtil he has 
felt if it is on firm ground; and by habit he does 
this without hesitating. Our scouts are able after 
a while to walk along using their eyes for observa- 
tion all the time not needing to watch where they 
are stepping. We also train them to have com- 
plete control over their muscles and among the 



THE ARMY'S PAIR OF EYES 231 

final tests for first-class scouts are to remain an 
hotir without showing any movement whatsoever 
and to take half an hour in getting from the prone 
or lying position to standing upright on their feet. 
These two last ideas were borrowed from the 
Zulu who has no equal in the world in escaping 
observation. They are also taught many methods 
for finding directions as a compass is unreliable 
where there is so much unidentified iron lying 
about. 

We have abundantly demonstrated in several 
sectors on the western front that it is always pos- 
sible for properly trained men to surprise the 
enemy. As a matter of fact the Germans have 
carried out surprise raids on us, and I am quite 
satisfied that it is never possible completely to 
guard against surprise. In one sector I had trip 
wires in No Man's Land connected with buzzers 
in our own trench so arranged that I would know 
if there were any one out there and to within 
fifty yards of where they were. But this was 
only possible on a quiet front where there was 
no actual offensive taking place, and not many 
shells falling in No Man's Land. I even placed 
buttons in the German wire so as to be sure that 
our patrols did not just go outside our own trench 
and lie in a shell-hole until it was time to return, 
for they had to signal by pressing these buttons 
at intervals. They had to repair any of these 
wires they found severed, and this somewhat 



232 "OVER THERE'* 

elaborate scheme was the means of our capturing 
some German patrols and gave us entire control 
of No Man's Land. 

We also took advantage of every possible means 
to make Fritz's sentries jumpy. We would have 
our snipers on certain days smash all their peri- 
scopes. I myself have shot down sixty in an after- 
noon when the sim was shining on them. This 
made them afraid that they would not have any 
left for emergencies and gave them a wholesome 
respect for our shooting so that they were very 
shy of exposing themselves. We would also set 
a rifle to fire exactly into a loophole so that when 
it opened we had only to pull the trigger to send 
a bullet through the brain of the man using it. 
There were other dodges that it is not wise to 
speak of just yet. 

This may be a good place to describe the two 
kinds of raids. In a raid with artillery support 
the artillery cut out a sector of the enemy trench 
with a "box barrage" which means that they 
fire on three lines of a square leaving the open 
side for our troops to enter. They also put a 
barrage on this side until the prearranged mo- 
ment when the attackers go forward. This leaves 
the raiders to deal with the troops within that 
box preventing any others coming in to support 
them. The weakness of this method is that it 
lets the whole German line know what we are 
doing, and the raiding-party frequently gets cut 



THE ARMY'S PAIR OF EYES 233 

up badly by the enemy's artillery when they are 
returning across No Man's Land. 

The most successful raid is always the silent 
one if you have dependable troops. The chief ob- 
stacle is the enemy wire, but beforehand the artil- 
lery can cut this in many places, and machine-guns 
can be ranged on these gaps to prevent their being 
repaired. The enemy does not know, even if 
he suspects a raid, exactly where it will come. 
It is even a good idea if you only have a small 
party to enter one of these gaps, crawl down fifty 
yards inside the wire before attacking, and, when 
finished, come out through another gap lower 
down, but every man of the party needs to scout 
over the ground beforehand so there will be no 
confusion during the attack. We have carried out 
successful raids in this manner when none but the 
Germans who were attacked knew anything of 
what was going on until we were back in our own 
trenches, and rarely were there any of these who 
could give evidence except by means of their dead 
bodies. I remember that one of our men, who 
was champion wood-chopper of Australia before 
the war, drove his bayonet through a German 
and six inches into a hardwood beam, and as 
he could not withdraw it had to imship it, leav- 
ing the German stuck up there as a souvenir 
of his visit. Probably not another man in the 
army could have done it, but it no doubt added 
to the reputation of the Australians, as these 



234 "OVER THERE" 

Fritzes must have thought us a race of Sam- 
sons. 

There is a strong bond between us and the 
airmen, and the army's pair of eyes are focussed 
together, for the information from both sources 
is co-ordinated. Our trench maps are constructed 
chiefly from aeroplane photographs, and it was 
only occasionally that some object would be seen 
in the photograph that could not be identified; 
when we scouts would have to crawl over to it 
and find out its family-tree. 

All our intelligence officers are given schooling 
in aerial observation, and I have been several 
times over the German lines with a pilot, and 
have a very high admiration for these birdmen 
who are not merely the bravest of the brave 
but princes of good fellows. I had some won- 
derful aeroplane photographs of some of our 
attacks wherein I could recognize the stages 
of our progress, and so expert has this work 
become that a German soldier can hardly even 
brush away a fly without a permanent record 
of it being obtained. Probably the greater num- 
ber of our aeroplanes on the battle-front are en- 
gaged in ranging for the artillery, and in actual 
offensive warfare, but their greatest value is in 
reconnoissance, and so it will always be. 

"Airman" and *' scout" — one flies, the other 
crawls, yet both seek information from the enemy, 
and are the twin eyes of the army. There is a 



THE ARMY'S PAIR OF EYES 235 

romance about the work of both that attracts 
adventurous youth, and neither is as dangerous 
as it appears to a layman. In the element of 
the airman he is a difficult target to hit, and 
it is estimated that it takes thirty thousand anti- 
aircraft shells to bring him down. And his 
machine is now so perfect that peace flying will 
be much safer than motoring. 

In No Man's Land, the hunting-grotmd of the 
scout, shells only fall by accident, and he is camou- 
flaged to defy detection. A black crawling suit 
is used at night, with hood and mask, but the 
most important thing is to break the outline of 
the head, so the hood has several peaks and cor- 
ners. A human head on the sky-line cannot be 
mistaken for anything else, except maybe a pump- 
kin or melon, but in these hoods it appears like 
a large lump of dirt, and should the scout chance 
to move suddenly while in such a position, the 
likelihood is he would be dirt in a second or so. 

**A11 day long when the shells sail over 
I stand at the sand-bags and take my chance; 
But at night, at night I'm a reckless rover, 
And over the parapet gleams Romance." * 

* Robert W. Service. 



CHAPTER XXIV 
NIGHTS IN NO MAN'S LAND 

"How little I thought that my time was coming 
Sudden and splendid, supreme and soon; 
And here I am with the bullets humming 
As I crawl and I curse the light of the moon. 
Out alone, for adventure thirsting, 
Out in mysterious No Man's Land; 
Prone with the dead when a star-shell, bursting, 
Flares on the horrors on every hand. 

Yet oh, it's great to be here with danger, 
Here in the weird, death-pregnant dark, 
In the devil's pasture a stealthy ranger, 
When the moon is decently hiding. Hark ! 
What was that? Was it just the shiver 
Of an eerie wind or a clammy hand? 
The rustle of grass, or the passing quiver 
Of one of the ghosts of No Man's Land?" * 

The first night *'out there." The memory of 
it still quickens the ptilse and makes the cheek 
grow pale. How my teeth chattered, my heart 
beat almost to suffocation, every splash of a rat 
was an enemy scout, and every blade of grass 
magnified itself into a post for their barbed wire. 
I had but gone a few yards when I expected the 
next instant to bimip into the enemy trenches. 

There are strange sounds in No Man's Land; 
not human sotmds, for such carry far — the beat of 

* Robert W. Service. 
236 



NIGHTS IN NO MAN'S LAND 237 

a hammer on a post, the sharp twang of imroUing 
barbed wire as it catches, and then springs away 
— ^voices even come as through a megaphone in 
the eerie silence — but these are long-drawn sighs 
that penetrate the inner consciousness and hushed 
murmurs that fall on the ear of the soul. I have 
felt a touch on the shoulder as though one would 
speak to me when there has been no one by. 

It is the grave of ten thousand unburied dead, 
but the grinning skulls and quivering jelly or the 
few rags that flutter in the wind are not the com- 
rades that we knew. I think their spirits hover 
near, for they cannot go to their abiding-place till 
victory has been won. They are ever seeking to 
pierce the veil of sense so that they may add their 
strength to our arms, and these make for us of 
No Man's Land "no strange place," and give 
to our sentries encouragement until the land of 
No Man vanishes and our possession reaches 
to the barrier of the enemy barbed wire. My 
nights in No Man's Land if added together would 
total many months, and I grew to feel that it was 
one of the safest places on the whole front. 

There was one night when I got a huge fright. 
I was crawling alongside a ridge — it had been 
an old irrigation farm, and this was a low levee 
running across — I heard on the other side a splash 
which I thought was made by one of the innumer- 
able rats, but I put up my head and looked over 
— so did Fritz, not a yard away ! We both stared 



238 "OVER THERE •♦ 

blankly in each other's face for a long second 
and then both of us turned and bolted. This 
was excusable for a German, but I have no de- 
fense. When I went back to look for him, after 
a court martial by my own conscience, he was 
nowhere to be seen. 

There was another night when Fritz got the 
better of me. In my explorations I came across 
a path through his barbed wire which was evi- 
dently the place where his patrols came out. 
I thought I would provide a stirprise-party for 
him, so I planted some percussion bombs and 
put a small Union Jack in the centre. In the 
morning the Union Jack was gone and a German 
flag in its place. Everybody from the brigadier 
down rubbed it in that Fritz was too smart for 
me. 

But after this the tide turned and came in in 
a flood of ill luck for Fritz. It was a pitch-black 
night and the occasional star-shells only served 
to make the black more intense when they faded. 
As we crawled out one behind the other each had 
to keep a hand on the foot ahead so as not to 
get separated. We made several ineffectual at- 
tempts to find the opening in our barbed wire 
and then cut a new one. Was this like the dark- 
ness after Calvary ? The red signal-rockets ascend- 
ing from the enemy's trenches gave no light, but 
only biunt for a second or two as a ruddy star. 
And the green lights turned the vaporous fog a 



NIGHTS IN NO MAN'S LAND 239 

sickly yellowish green as though it were some 
new poison-gas of the devils over there. I led 
the way straight across. It was too dark to pick 
a path and we committed no sacrilege as we trod 
on the bodies of forgotten comrades. It was 
impossible to repress a shudder as the hand 
met the clammy flesh, and the spilt light from 
a rocket exposed the marble eyeballs and whitened 
flesh of the cheek with the bared teeth gleaming 
yet more white. Our mission was to wait for a 
German patrol at the gap in their wire I had 
previously discovered. We were seeking identi- 
fication of the regiments opposing us, and we de- 
desired to take at least one of them alive. 

We waited drawn-out minutes while the dark 
smothered us and our thoughts haunted us. Min- 
ute piled on minute while we suffered the torture of 
the heretic who was fastened so that the falling 
drops of ice-water would follow each on the selfsame 
spot. Home and * ' Love of Life ' ' sought to drag us 
back to the shelter of our trenches, but Duty like 
an iron stake pinned us there. But the stake was 
fast loosening in the soil of our resolution, when 
we heard the guttural gruntings that announced 
the approach of oiu: quarry. We let them pass 
us and get well away from their trenches, then 
silently, like hunters stalking wild beasts, we fol- 
lowed them. When we were close enough to be 
almost overpowered by the smell of sauerkraut 
and sausage mingling with stale sweat, my voice 



240 "OVER THERE'' 

rapped out, though muffled by the thick air: 
*' Hands up !" There was no hesitation in obey- 
ing, although there were eight of them and only 
six of us. We pointed out the direction for them 
to go, and reminded them with our boots that there 
was no time to waste. We had only crossed a 
couple of shell-holes, however, when we came to 
a full stop. Presently I imderstood that they had 
discovered we were Australians and were terri- 
fied. Probably they had been fed up with tales 
about our savagery, that we tortured our prisoners. 
Anyivay, they would not budge, and we could not 
carry eight hulking Germans and had no means of 
tying them together. Presently, the disturbance 
attracted notice from both trenches and there was 
only one thing to do. My sergeant called out: 
* ' Look out, sir ! We'll be seen in a minute. What 
will we do?" The contest was short and sharp; 
they outnimibered us, but we went to it with a will. 
It was sheer butchery, but I had rather send a 
thousand of the swine down to the fatherland than 
lose one of my boys. And perhaps it was charity 
to some wife and daughter who would now be 
free from the brutality of her Teutonic lord and 
master. 

There is nothing so easy as to be lost in No 
Man's Land. A compass is useless, for you may 
be lying on a fifteen-inch shell just covered with 
a few inches of earth, and the stars refuse to look 
down on its pain, and the sky is always thickly 



NIGHTS IN NO MAN'S LAND 241 

veiled. Ttim round three times, and you don't 
know which trench to return to. It is an awkward 
predicament, and many a time I went bhndly 
forward praying that it was in the right di- 
rection. The German's horn-rimmed glasses but 
bewilder him the more, and we have had several 
of them walk into our arms without intention, 
though they soon foimd that thereby they had 
bettered themselves. There was one yoimg Ba- 
varian officer who made this miscalculation. I 
saw him moving near otir wire in the early dawn. 
I called to some men to draw a bead on him but 
he came toward us and at the last with a run 
jtmiped down into oiu* trench. "Good morning !" 
I said to him, looking down my automatic, and 
you never saw such a crestfallen countenance in 
your life. It must have been some shock, expect- 
ing to join his own people and suddenly finding 
himself in the camp of his enemies. I found out 
afterward that he was a young cadet qualifying 
for his commission, and this was his first night 
in the trenches. He evidently was seeking an 
iron cross very early in his career. I spat ques- 
tion after question at him: "What's your regi- 
ment?" "How long have you been in the 
trenches?" etc., but in English he replied: "I 
won't tell you anything. You can't make me!" 
"All right, old chap, don't get excited! Come 
along with me." I took him to the dugout which 
I shared with the medical officer in the support- 



242 *'OVER THERE" 

trenches and sent Pat, my batman, to get to- 
gether the best meal he could. Pat was a genius 
as a provider. None of the other officers liked 
him, for they suspected he was the medium for 
the loss of some of their luxuries, and I always 
had a blind eye. On this occasion Pat got together 
a real slap-up feed — some tinned sausages, mashed 
potatoes, strawberry jam, preserved pears and 
cream, not forgetting a bottle of champagne. I 
sent for the doctor and we fell to with gusto, and 
never offered his nibs a bite, though the eyes were 
popping out of his head, and his mouth watering 
with hunger. Toward the end of the meal I said 
to him: 'T can't compel you to tell me anything, 
but I am not compelled to feed you. But you 
know how to earn something to eat." He began 
to tell me something I knew was all rubbish and 
I swung at him with "You swine! If you tell 
me those lies I'll strip your badges off you and 
send you in as a private." I was surprised at 
the effect this threat had on him, though I knew 
that was the one thing that never failed in bring- 
ing a German officer to book. He trembled and 
paled and gave me a lot of information that I 
afterward proved to be correct. 

Here's a good story of Pat, my old batman, 
who had been a shearer's cook in Australia, and 
looked after me like a father. He was really too 
old for the trenches, but this job just suited him. 
I was very surprised one day to see him with a 



NIGHTS IN NO MAN'S LAND 243 

German prisoner. He was never in a charge, 
and had no business having this man. Probably 
he had borrowed him from some other chap. I 
said to him: "Pat, what on earth are you doing 
with Fritz?" ''To tell yer the truth, sorr-r, Oi 
haven't yet made up my moind !" "Let us have 
no humbug, take him back to the cage !" "Very 
well, sorr-r!" About ten minutes later I saw 
Pat without his prisoner. "Here, Pat, what on 
earth did you do with Fritz?" "Well, sorr-r, 
he kept beggin' and beggin' to be let go, so Oi 
just put a Mills in his pocket with the pin out, 
and tould him to run for his loife!" He would 
not get fifty yards before it went off ! 

The trained scout moves very cautiously in 
No Man's Land, with all his senses at high ten- 
sion. After moving from one shell-hole to the 
next he lies and listens for a full minute. If 
there are any human beings near they will likely 
betray themselves by loud breathing, a muffled 
sneeze, or some rattle of equipment. If satis- 
fied that the way is clear, he moves forward 
into another hole. Should he suddenly come 
into sight of the enemy, he is taught to freeze 
instantly, and the chances are he will not be 
noticed. 

There was one night when I was making a way 
through the German wire, and had my hand up 
cutting a strand, when a sentry poked his head over 
the top and looked straight at me not three yards 



244 "OVER THERE'* 

away. I froze instantly in that attitude but he 
fired a shot at me which, of course, went wide, be- 
ing aimed in the dark. He then sent up a flare, 
but the firing of this dazzles a man for several sec- 
onds, and then so many shadows are thrown that 
I was no more distinct than previously. He went 
away, returning a minute or two later to have an- 
other look. By this time I was feeling quite stiff, 
but he was quite satisfied that no live man could 
be there. Had I jumped into a shell-hole, as fear 
prompted me to do, he would have roused the 
whole line, and a bomb would likely have got me. 
However, I thought this would be a good oppor- 
tunity to take a look into the trench, for I reasoned 
that this sentry must be alone or some one else 
would have put up the flare while he fired the shot. 
Probably the rest of his regiment were on a work- 
ing fatigue not far away. It was a breastwork 
trench and I climbed up the sand-bags, but tripped 
over a wire at the top and came down with a 
clatter. A red flare went up and I heard the feet 
of many soldiers nmning along the duck-boards. 
I only had time to roll into the ditch at the foot 
of the back of the parapet, where I was quite safe 
from observation, when they manned their trench 
to repel the "raid." After several minutes when 
about a hundred rifles, several machine-guns, and 
a trench-mortar were pouring their fire into No 
Man's Land, I began to recover my nerve and 
saw that it would be a good opportunity to mark 



NIGHTS IN NO MAN'S LAND 245 

the position of one of these machine-guns which 
was firing just above my head. In fact, I could, 
with ease, have had my hand drilled just by 
holding it up. I tore a page out of my note-book 
and placed it in a crevice between the sand-bags, 
just under the gun. Hours afterward when all 
was quiet I returned to our own trenches and 
fastened another piece of white paper to a bush 
half-way across No Man's Land that I noticed 
was in line with a dead tree close to our "sally- 
port," and my first piece of paper. In the morn- 
ing the artillery observation officer could see 
these two pieces of paper quite plainly with his 
glasses, and that trench was levelled for fifty 
yards. 

No Man's Land is a place of surprises where 
death plucks its victims without warning. There 
have been some strange deaths there when bodies 
lay with imbroken skin, having neither mark of 
bullet nor shell. Times when the spirit laid the 
body down, fair and immarred human flesh, but 
other times when the flesh was rent to ribbons and 
the bones smashed to splinters by the force impris- 
oned in a shell. 

Such was the death meted out by justice to six 
Germans in a listening post fifty yards in advance 
of their trench. This party was in the way of 
our raid. We could not enter their trench by 
surprise without first removing it, and the job 
fell on me. I prepared a mine of my own. I 



246 "OVER THERE 



»> 



took two Stokes shells, changed the time-fuse for 
instantaneous, took out the safety-pins holding 
the lever down by means of an iron ring. I 
crept out with these shells just a little before 
dark so as to arrive at the position before the 
Germans. I then put the shells, one on either 
side, and connected them with a fine trip-wire 
tied to each ring. I hiu-ried from the spot as 
though the pestilence were after me, and got 
back safely — to the surprise of my brother officers 
who very consolingly said that they all expected I 
would blow myself up. At half past eight, how- 
ever, there was music in our ears of a loud explo- 
sion in the direction of my mine. Next morning, 
through the telescope, could be seen what re- 
mained of several Him carcasses. Pat, my bat- 
man, who was always a Job's comforter, informed 
me that the Germans would lie in wait for me to 
revenge this outrage ; but if I had taken any notice 
of him, I would never have been able to do my 
job. He would come to me some mornings and 
beg me not to go out in No Man's Land that night 
as he had dreamed that I was *'kilt," when I gen- 
erally consigned him to a place where the Eng- 
lish cease from troubling, and the Irish are at 
rest. 

The enemy did his share in surprises. There 
was one occasion when I received word from the 
Tommies on our right that a large German patrol 
had been out on their front all night. As they 



NIGHTS IN NO MAN'S LAND 247 

did not attack I was considerably worried as to 
what they were up to, knowing they would not 
be there for the benefit of their health. I was 
responsible that our portion of the line should 
be guarded from surprise, and fear of some un- 
known calamity that might spring upon us from 
the dark made me so concerned that I lay pretty 
nearly all day on top of the parapet covered with 
sand-bags searching every inch of No Man's Land 
for a sign of the cause of their nocturnal activity. 
The setting sun revealed something shining that 
looked like the barrel of a Lewis gun. I deter- 
mined to go out and get it after dark. When I 
went out I found I could not get near the place, 
for a machine-gim was playing round it to dis- 
courage curiosity, which it very effectively did. 
I reported next morning that the only chance of 
seeing what it was was to go out in the daytime, 
and it was suspicious enough to justify the risk. 
I donned a green suit and with a snail's progress 
crawled through the long grass and discovered 
that the Germans had laid a five-inch pipe from 
their trenches to within fifty yards of an indenta- 
tion in otir own. They would be able to enfilade 
us with gas before we could don our masks. We 
looked on our dangerous wind being one that 
blew across No Man's Land, but with this pipe 
we would be gassed when the wind blew down 
the line from the Tommies to us. The engineer 
officer wanted to blow up the pipe, but I thought 



248 "OVER THERE" 

if we blocked it up the enemy might not discover 
it, and put through gas which would come back 
on himself. Some concrete dugouts were being 
constructed at this time, and I took out a bucket 
of concrete and dumped it over the end of the 
pipe in broad daylight without having a shot 
fired at me or being seen. Afterward I foimd 
crawling in the daylight in No Man's Land to 
be less dangerous than at night. On a quiet front 
there is very httle rifle or machine-gim fire by day 
for fear of betraying machine-gun and sniper posi- 
tions. Never once in two or three daylight ex- 
cursions into No Man's Land was I seen by^the 
enemy or oui own sentries. 

Darkness always holds fear for the human 
heart, and it is the imknown danger that makes 
the bravest quail, and not so many are cowards 
in the daylight. But who can tell which holds the 
more peril for the soldier ? He faces the terror that 
cometh by night, the destruction that walketh by 
day, and the pestilence that wasteth at noonday. 
But night is often kindly — ^it brings the balm of 
sleep to our tired bodies and covers coarseness 
and filth with a softening veil. No Man's Land 
at night is more beautiful than by day, for we 
need not know of the horror we do not see, and it 
shuts us off from sight of our enemies, and lets 
us feel that the wall is thick and strong that stands 
between our homes and women kin, and the 
savagery and bestiality of the monster who 






NIGHTS IN NO MAN'S LAND 249 

ravaged the homes and raped the women of Bel- 
gium and France. 

"But if there's horror, there's beauty, wonder; 
The trench lights gleam and the rockets play. 
That flood of magnificent orange yonder 
Is a battery blazing miles away." * 

* Robert W. Service. 



CHAPTER XXV 
SPY-HUNTING 

Man is by instinct and tradition a hunter, and 
there is no sport so thrilling as man-hunting, espe- 
cially if the hunted be a menace to society, 
and more especially if he be a spy that threatens 
the safety of yourself and comrades. There is 
also in this branch of intelligence service an 
appeal to the clash of wits that holds fascination 
for the keen mind. The German spy system is not 
more clever than our own, but has been more 
carefully organized and much longer in opera- 
tion. He spies also on friend and neutral, while 
we only use this back-door method of gleaning 
information from an enemy. The word, too, 
has associations that are ugly, and I fancy that 
our spies do not boast of their service, but spy- 
hunting is a service that has no taint, and there 
is much satisfaction both to the conscience and 
intellect in routing out the underground worker 
who, for "filthy lucre," would sell the blood of 
his fellow man. The traitor and the spy have 
in all ages been rightly considered as foul beings 
who poison the air and whose touch contaminates. 
In Germany alone is the spy given honor which I 

is fitting in a country which has substituted Ex- \ 

250 



SPY-HUNTING 251 

ifediency for Honor and Plausibility for Truth, 
j on whose throne is a maniac, and where Conscience 
has been unseated by Pride, and Reason displaced 
by Method. 

Germany's espionage of her neighbors has been 
in existence so long, and so much time and money 
have been expended on it that we must prepare 
for its reassertion after the war even in countries 
where it has been for a time suppressed. Its hands 
have been cut off, but the plotting brain and the 
murderous heart of the system still persist and 
will be used after the war to rehabilitate the trade 
of Germany tmder many disguises, and will also 
seek, through appeal to our pity for a fallen nation, 
to lull us into slumber, until the claws and fangs 
of militarism have grown again. 

We are so new in the game that our methods 
in spy-htmting are clumsy, and we frequently 
give warning to the brains of the system to seek 
cover when we strike at its puppets. By arrest- 
ing the agents of the German master spy we cut 
off his activity for a time but allow him to spread 
his ramifications in other directions, and the first 
knowledge we have that he has spnmg to life 
again is by the destruction of property and loss 
of life that ensue. It would sometimes pay us 
to give these agents more and more rope, keeping 
them under observation imtil we can strike at 
the centre and heart of all this plotting. When 
we have enough evidence against one of these 



252 "OVER THERE" 

agents for a death penalty we should allow him 
to purchase his life by betraying his master, and 
as these agents only serve for hire and know not 
what loyalty is, they are always ready to turn 
king's evidence if the price offered be high enough. 
Of coiirse, they should not be given their liberty 
again, but segregated like the carrier of a conta- 
gious disease. 

It should always be remembered that a man 
who in war-time talks sedition and disloyalty in 
public is not a spy. He is too big a fool to be ever 
employed in a service that requires, above all 
things, secrecy and the ability to avert suspicion. 
The first thing a spy seeks to do is to find a suit- 
able cloak to cover his designs, and also to place 
himself in a position where he will gain informa- 
tion. Among the first things he would do would 
be to seek to join the Red Cross, and he would be 
almost certain to enlist. In these days the man to 
be suspicious of is the one who is always protest- 
ing his loyalty and showing what he is doing "to 
help the cause.*' The true patriot knows that 
he has no need to proclaim his loyalty, and is 
shy of boasting of service that is really a "privilege 
and a duty." 

Among the most useful equipments for a secret- 
service agent is lip-reading, and if he can signal 
with his eyelids in Morse so much the better. 
Dark goggles, one glass of which is a small mirror, 
are also very useful, as one can sit with one's back 



SPY-HUNTING 253 

to a party in a caf6 or train, and read what they 
are saying. Women are the most dangerous 
spies, and trade on the instinctive chivalry that 
men cannot help but extend to them. There are 
many officers whose deaths at the front have 
been suicides because they were betrayed by some 
woman who had sucked valuable information from 
them, and their chivalry would not let them 
deHver her over to justice. Men in high place 
in England and in France have betrayed the 
public trust through faith in a woman who was 
false and who sold their confidence to the enemy 
for a price that was so strong to their hearts as 
to be irresistible, more than love, honor, or 
country. 

Even in the army there are mysterious hap- 
penings — shots from behind and strange disap- 
pearances. There was one Australian general 
whose death created many rumors, and other 
officers who were supposed to have been shot 
from within our lines. 

Of course, in the war zone among a strange 
peasantry there are many spy scares, and maybe 
some of the things we were suspicious of were 
quite innocent; but it was strange that when- 
ever a gray horse appeared near a battery that 
battery was shelled, and when they painted all 
the gray horses green their positions were not so 
frequently spotted. Sometimes the old Flemish 
farmers would certainly plough their fields in a 



254 "OVER THERE" 

strange fashion but, perhaps, zigzags and swas- 
tikas are common patterns in French fields. It 
may have been our alarmed ears that fancied 
the paper boy played a different tune on his horn 
every day, but pigeons did certainly rise from 
the middle of paddocks contrary to the habits 
of these birds. 

One of the hardest things I ever did was to 
arrest a young Belgian girl nineteen years of 
age who undoubtedly was the means of the death 
of thousands of our boys. It was in this wise. 
One night I observed a light a good way be- 
hind our trenches go out then come again. I 
watched it very carefully, and found it was 
signalling by the Morse code with dashes ten 
seconds long and the dots five. If you were not 
watching it very carefully you would never have 
dreamt it was anything but a flicker of light. The 
letters I read wer^-NRUDTVEAUAOILN, 
which, when decoded, gave important informa- 
tion regarding the movement of troops. I took 
a line through some trees of the direction from 
which the light came and walked toward it. Just 
off an old drain I found an overturned wagon 
with a loophole cut through the backboard. There 
were footprints in the drain, and the grass was 
pressed down where a body had been lying. For 
five nights I lay in wait, my hopes keyed up to 
the highest point of expectation. At last to me 
was to fall the good fortune of capturing a spy 
— ^perhaps to end the leakage of information of our 



SPY-HUNTING 255 

plans that we knew the Germans were getting. 
But on these five nights nothing happened. 
The day afterward, some boys of a battery whom 
I asked to watch this drain caught an old farmer 
in it. This farmer, however, who lived next door 
to otu- brigade headquarters had been carefully 
watched, and the information had come from 
outside the zone which he never left. Some one 
must have brought the information to him. 
Everybody using those roads had to have a pass- 
port issued by the French intelligence service, 
and countersigned by the intelligence officer of 
the area. Elimination narrowed suspicion to a 
paper girl who, it was found, sold out her papers 
round the batteries and billets at ten o'clock, 
and did not return until after three. The excuse 
she gave was that she was visiting her brother's 
grave, but on looking up her records we foimd 
that she had never had a brother. One day I 
kept her in sight on the road while I rode across the 
fields. After she entered the house where she was 
living at Estaires I followed and opened the door. 
As soon as she saw me she fainted. I blew my 
whistle, and on arrival of the picket we searched 
the house and found the German code with some 
maps and other incriminating documents. I 
never did a harder task in my life than hand that 
girl over to the French authorities for possible 
execution. She was a very pretty, happy little 
girl, red-haired and blue-eyed, and, although one 
could show no pity because the safety and life 



2S6 "OVER THERE** 

of thousands were at stake, yet it wriing the heart 
to think of the wastage of the young, bright life, 
the victim of German gold, and the treachery 
that is the handmaiden of war, and preys on the 
weakness of the moral nature. 

There was another occasion when I imearthed 
a spy's burrow. One night a man in D Company 
stopped me on the road, and pointing out a lonely 
farmhouse, told me he had seen some blue sparks 
flashing from the chimney. We walked across 
and, entering the flagged kitchen, asked for ''cafe 
au lait." Sitting at the white table worn with 
much scrubbing, and slowly sipping the coffee, 
we engaged the old man and woman in conver- 
sation. They were very bitter in their denuncia- 
tion of "les boches," and spoke of their sacrifices 
as nothing. "Why, monsieur, it is for France! 
It is not for us to complain if she ask much from 
us." My companion spoke French very fluently 
(his name was Davies), and he acted as inter- 
preter. I noticed that they seemed anxious to 
get rid of us, but we stayed for several hours 
getting the old lady to cook us eggs and chipped 
potatoes, and talking on almost every topic but 
the war. One suspicious circumstance that had 
caught my eye as soon as we entered the kitchen 
was the fact that the flue of the stove did not 
lead up the chimney, but out through a hole in 
the wall. 

At last, when we rose to go the old man in 



SPY-HUNTING 257 

an excess of hospitality accompanied us fifty- 
yards on our way. We promised to bring some 
companions on another day. "But no, mon- 
sieur, that will not do — we cannot get more eggs, 
and my wife she is a little afraid of the soldat 
from Australie." 

After he left us and retiuned to the farm we 
doubled back, and round to the other side. 
Soon we heard the crackle of wireless. Ex- 
pecting that the door would be fast bolted, we 
smashed-in a window, almost knocking over the 
old woman as she barred our way. Looking up 
the chimney, I foimd there as neat a small set of 
wireless as was ever ''made in Germany." The 
motor was in the cellar and well-muffled. The 
old chap hesitated to come down, but a shot that 
brought down some plaster hurried his decision. 
In spite of the old woman's pretended fear of 
Australians, she evidently did not think we were 
adamant to pity. On her knees with much weep- 
ing she begged us to let them go away, and shifted 
rapidly from one groimd of appeal to another. 
She said her husband was crazy and his wires 
and things did no harm; he was trying to talk 
to "le President," but no answer ever came. 
She would have him locked up. "You would not 
harm an old mother of France !" I told her she 
wasn't French, but German, of which I had had 
suspicions all along. She then spat at us and 
told us to do our worst, but the old man merely 



2S8 "OVER THERE" 

stood there and scowled, and as he stood upright, 
with folded arms, we judged he was not as old 
by twenty years as he appeared, though his make- 
up was perfect. We marched them through 
the village under the curious eyes of many of 
our own comrades, but the eager gesticulations 
of the French people, and the fierce blaze of 
rage in the eyes of the women showed us that 
they had no friends among the neighbors, and 
revealed to us the smouldering fires of hate 
that the French people have for the brutal in- 
vader. I fancy the dastardly pair were glad 
of our protection for all their looks of defiance. 
They knew that a spy would meet short shrift 
at the hands of these French women whose im- 
tamed spirit was the same as that of the Margots 
of the Parisian gutters in the Reign of Terror. 



CHAPTER XXVI 
BAPAUME AND "A BLIGHTY" 

How many weeks I lay under the shadow of 
the chtirch-tower of Bapaume I know not. But 
every morning as the mist Hfted the church-tower 
would reappear through the trees, and now and 
again the flash of a glass would show that it was 
an observation-post of the enemy, and frequently 
well-placed shells on our trenches and dumps 
would show to what devilish uses our enemies 
were putting the house of God as they directed 
their shell-fire from a seat just under the cross 
on the tower. 

This is a very old, historic town of France, 
and the sentiment of the French people would 
not have it shelled. So we lay these weeks within 
cooee of a nest of our enemies, who were per- 
mitted the safety and comfort of a peaceful home 
almost within our lines. There are other places 
along the line where we are under the same dis- 
advantage. There is the city of Lille with its 
million or more of French inhabitants lying with- 
in five miles of our lines (such easy range), for 
over three years, and not a shell fired into it. 
How the Germans smile as their bases of opera- 
tion lie in such security, for, of course, sentiment 

259 



26o "OVER THERE" 

has been erased from the German character for- 
ever. 

The French made the mistake again in regard 
to Bapaume of crediting the Germans with hu- 
man feeHngs — they vainly hoped that the Ger- 
mans would respect historic monimients when 
they gained no military advantage by destroying 
them. But every day that the war is prolonged 
is but adding to the evidence already so colossal 
that the German is a beast who wantonly de- 
stroys and takes sheer joy in slaying, burning, 
and smashing, destroying for destruction's sake, 
and killing for the sight of blood. When we drove 
the Germans from Bapaume they left it in ruins 
as utter as though we had bombarded it, but 
so much more systematic was their destruction ! 
In the market square there is a hole large enough 
to hold a cathedral, made by the mine they ex- 
ploded as they left, which was so senseless as 
almost to make it seem that, like children, they 
wanted to hear how big a bang they could make. 
But their devilish lack of htimor is more plainly 
shown in the system with which they destroyed 
the orchards in the country further back. Every 
tree was cut at exactly the same height from the 
groimd, and carefully laid in the selfsame way. 
Not one of them deviated a hair's breadth in its 
position on the ground from the angle made 
by its neighbor. They must have spent hours 
in obtaining such hellish regularity. Wed Sys- 



BAPAUME AND "A BLIGHTY" 261 

tern to Lust, and you have an alliance of Satan 
with the hag Sycorax, and their offspring is the 
German Empire, the Caliban of nations. 

The highest point of the church-tower, how- 
ever, before the days of our advance, was its cross, 
and in our misery we could always see this symbol 
of hope and salvation ; but it was a reminder too 
of pain and suffering endured that man's spirit 
might be free, and as we also were suffering and 
enduring in freedom's cause, we knew that our 
strife was religion and our accomplishment would 
be salvation. 

And what we endured in that bitter cold has 
scarred our memories and added to our bodies 
the aging of years. In the chronic agony of cold 
the pain of wounds was an alleviation, and I have 
seen men who had just had their arms blown off 
wave the jagged stump and laugh as they called 
out— "Got a 'blighty' at last, sir!" We were 
standing up to oin- waists in liquid mud by day, 
into which we would freeze at night. I have gone 
along the trench and kicked and punched my boys 
into sensibility, and said: "Is there anything I 
can do for you, boys? Can't I get you any- 
thing?" ''Oh, no sir. We're all right, but don't 
we envy old Nick and his imps to-night !" Who 
is there that is not abashed in the presence of a 
spirit like that ? And had you been there and 
these your men, wouldn't you love them as I 
do ? Never did the spirit of man rise more glorious 



262 "OVER THERE »♦ 

to the demand of hard occasion, than when those 
boys of AustraHa laughed and joked in the tor- 
tures of hell. Eighty per cent of them had never 
known a temperature lower than thirty above 
zero, and here was a cold more biting than they 
had ever dreamed of and they were without pro- 
tection, living in a filthy ditch, never dry, their 
clothing unable to keep out wet or cold. Back 
in camp every man had a complaint, where it is 
the province of the soldier to grtmible. In those 
days the orderly officer would go round with his 
question of "Any complaints?" "Yes, look 
here, sir. What do you think of that ?" "Why, 
dear me, man, it seems very good soup !" "Yes, 
sir, but it is supposed to be stew !'* Why, if the 
Australian soldier did not complain, you might 
well suspect a mutiny brewing ! Too much mar- 
malade, and not enough plum ! etc. I never 
thought there was as much marmalade in the 
world as I myself have consumed on active ser- 
vice ! Those days when we were well off, and 
did not know it, with dry beds and a clean tent, 
with good warm food, and plenty to eat and drink, 
the boys were always "kicking" about something 
or other, but now when things were hellish bad 
under conditions when woimds were a luxury 
and death a release you never heard a complaint. 
There were days too when an enemy barrage cut 
off our supplies and prevented relief, and we were 
compelled to live on dry biscuits and cold water, 



BAPAUME AND "A BLIGHTY" 263 

taking our water from the shell-holes where the 
dead were rotting. I remember when I was 
woimded and being carried out of the trench 
my brother officers saying to me: "Oh, Knyvett, 
you lucky dog !" And I was lucky, and knew it, 
though I had twenty wounds and trench feet. 
Why, when I arrived at the hospital and lay in 
a real bed, with real sheets, and warm blankets, 
with a roof over my head that didn't leak, and 
a fire in the room, with the nurse now and again 
to come along and smile on me, I tell you heaven 
had no extra attractions to offer me. The man 
who got woimded in those days was a lucky dog, 
all right; in fact, he mostly is at all times, and 
about the silHest thing the War Office ever did 
was to issue an honor stripe for wounds. The 
man deserving of the greatest credit is not the 
man who gets wounded, but the man who stays 
on in the trenches week after week, and month 
after month enduring the nervous strain and 
imnatural conditions, living like a rat in a hole 
in the ground. There are none who have been 
there for any length of time who do not welcome 
the sharp pain of a wotmd as a relief. 

The Germans opposite us in their trenches at 
Bapaume were, of course, in as bad a plight as 
we were. When I scouted down their trenches 
at night I found equipment and stores lying on 
top of the parapet. Evidently, the mud in the 
bottom of their trenches was as bad as in ours, 



264 "OVER THERE" 

and anything dropped had to be fished for. Per- 
haps there were no deep dugouts just there. We 
would not allow our men to use these deep dug- 
outs as nothing so conduces to bad morale. Once 
men get deep down out of range of the shells they 
are very, very reluctant to leave their "funk- 
holes." A man has to be hardened to shell-fire 
before he is of any value as a fighter, and these 
deep dugouts take men out of reach of most of 
the shells, and when they come in the open again 
they have to be hardened anew. 

It is not generally a wise plan to occupy the old 
German trench, as he has the range of it very ac- 
curately, and an3rway it is in most cases so badly 
battered about after our artillery has done with 
it as not to be at all superior as a residence to 
the shell-holes in front of it, and it is mostly full 
of dead Germans which are unearthed by the 
shells as often as we bury them. God knows the 
smell of a live German is not a pleasant thing 
to live near, but as for dead ones ! . . . Our 
method was to construct a new trench about 
fifty yards in advance by linking up a chain of 
shell-holes, and we felt the labor to be worth 
while when we saw the shells falling behind us, 
and it was not much harder than if we had had 
to clean out the old German trench. 

On our right flank there was a gap of a hun- 
dred yards that we patrolled two or three times 
a night, and in oiu* net we sometimes caught some 



BAPAUME AND "A BLIGHTY" 265 

Germans who were lost. On one occasion a Ger- 
man with a string of water-bottles round his neck, 
and a *' grunt" that may have been a password, 
stepped down into our trench. He had evidently- 
been out to get water for himself and comrades 
from their nearest supply, and taken the wrong 
turning ! He made an attempt at a grin when 
he found where he was, and evidently thought 
the change could not be for the worse. He was 
so thick in the head, however — I have known cows 
with more intelligence — that I wonder any other 
German being fool enough to trust him with such 
a valuable article as a water-bottle. 

We were planning to take a portion of the 
trench opposite to straighten our line, and I had 
scouted down a hundred yards of it from behind, 
and got a good idea of the strength with which 
it was held, taking bearings of its position. The 
next night, as the attack was to take place at 
daybreak, I thought I had better go over and 
make sure that I had made no mistakes. I crossed 
over the first trench without any difficulty. There 
did not seem to be any one on guard. I then 
went toward their support lines where there seemed 
to be more men, mostly working parties. I passed 
these and with impardonable carelessness stood 
up to have a look round, thinking that it was too 
dark for me to be seen. But I got a shock to find 
there was a sentry almost beside me — ^^though he 
was, if anything, more scared than myself. He 



266 "OVER THERE" 

pulled the trigger without taking aim and nat- 
urally missed me, but if he had been wide-awake 
he could with ease have pimctured me with his 
bayonet. I did not stop to pass the time of day 
with him, for the place seemed suddenly alive 
with Huns as he called *' Heinz, Heinz!" — prob- 
ably the name of his corporal — ^but I dived into 
a shell-hole and flattened myself as much as pos- 
sible. As I was lost to sight and to memory too 
dear to be allowed to escape they began to cover 
the ground with bombs. These all went well 
beyond me, and had it not been for ''Butter- 
fingers" I might have escaped. But a bomb 
slipped from his hand, rolling into the hole in 
front of him. He jumped back into the safety 
of the trench, and did not know that the bomb 
had fallen on me as it exploded. But I knew 
it — my left leg was broken in three places, twelve 
woimds in my right, and others on my back, twenty 
that afterward had to be dressed, not counting 
some other scratches. Then they came out to 
look for me, my ''friend" almost stepping on me, 
but after half an hour's fruitless search they 
gave up. About two hours later I started home 
on my long, painful crawl. It took me about 
twenty minutes to pass the sentry near where 
I was lying, but after that there was no danger 
of discovery — the front line still appearing al- 
most unoccupied; but I was getting dizzy and 
not sure of my direction. I knew, however, where 



BAPAUME AND "A BLIGHTY" 267 

there was a derelict aeroplane in No Man's Land, 
and made toward it. When I sighted this I was 
overcome with relief, and laid my face in the 
mud for a while to recover. I had now crawled 
about six hundred yards dragging my useless 
legs. And my elbows were skinned through, being 
used as grapples that I dug in the ground ahead, 
in that way dragging myself a few inches at a 
time. I knew oiu* trenches were still about two 
himdred yards away, and the sweat of fear broke 
out on me as I remembered the two machine- 
guns in front of me that would fire on anything 
seen moving out there, no one expecting me 
to return that way. So I crawled higher up the 
line, where it was safer to enter, and a few yards 
from our trenches gave our scouting call. Sev- 
eral of my boys came running out and tenderly 
picked me up. I was all in and could not move 
a muscle. My own boys would not allow the 
stretcher-bearers to touch me, but six of them 
put me on a stretcher and carried me over the 
top jUvSt as day was breaking. They would not 
go down into the communication-trench or shell- 
holes because they thought it would be too rough 
on me, and so carried me over the exposed ground; 
and when they got me to the dressing-station 
they said: ''You will come back to us, sir, won't 
you?" I said: "Yes, boys, you bet I- will!" 
And you may bet that I shall, as soon as ever I 
am passed as fit again. 



268 "OVER THERE" 

The pain of my wounds was soon altogether 
forgotten, for each medical officer that examined 
me finished up with the liquid melody of the 
phrase: '' Blighty for you ! " My leave was long 
past due, and the very next day I was to report 
for transfer to the Australian wing of the Royal 
Flying Corps, which would have meant several 
weeks' training in England, but ''the best laid 
schemes o' mice an' men gang aft a-gley !" — and 
there's a science shapes our ends, rough-hack them 
though Huns may ! 



PART V 
HOSPITAL LIFE 



CHAPTER XXVII 
IN FRANCE 

My hospital experiences in France were a pro- 
cession of five nights with intermissions of days 
spent in travel. From the advance dressing- 
station I was slid over the mud for three miles in 
a sledge drawn by the Methuselah of horses bor- 
rowed from some French farmhouse. His anti- 
quarian gait suited me, and this was the smooth- 
est of the many torturous forms of travel I 
endured before I was able once again to move up- 
rightly on my feet as a man should. 

At Trones Wood I was swung into a horse am- 
bulance and thereafter swung and swayed for a 
couple of hours imtil, closing my eyes, I could 
fancy I was once again at sea. This was rougher 
than the sledge, but endurable and certainly the 
most comfortable of all the wheeled vehicles in 
which I travelled. I bless the inventor of the 
springs that kept it swaying gently on a road all 
ruts and holes. 

I was deposited on the table of the operating- 
theatre in the field-ambulance, while a surgeon 
overhauled me to see if there was any injury 

necessitating an immediate operation. Satisfied 

271 



272 "OVER THERE" 

that I was merely broken and punctured, I was 
transferred to a cot and so began my first hospital 
night. I was known personally to all the doctors 
in our field-ambulance. I had on several occa- 
sions messed with them, and they were always 
very keenly interested in my yams of No Man's 
Land, so when the news spread that I had been 
brought in wounded I soon had a group round 
my bed, some of them in pyjamas being roused 
from their sleep to hear the news. One of them 
very gleefully said: "Hullo, Ejiyvett, old man — 
I've just won five pounds on you. We had a bet 
that you would not last out another month. 
You know you've had a pretty good innings and 
mighty lucky only to get wounded." But at that 
moment I was not in the mood to appreciate 
this form of humor, until one of them, seeing I 
was pretty uncomfortable, gave me an injection 
of morphia. But I was very glad to be resting 
there and felt I could hardly have endured a 
longer jotuney without a spell. I was given here 
the first good hot meal I had had for weeks, 
though I had been given a drink of steaming-hot 
coffee in the ambulance. There was not much 
sleep to be got, as a constant stream of men were 
being brought in and taken away, and now and 
again shells would fall quite close, but the groimd 
thereabouts was very soft, and I counted fifteen 
shells that fell close by with a wouf and a squelch, 
but did not explode. This hospital was all imder 



IN FRANCE 273 

canvas, just three or four big marquees and a 
score or so of tents for the medical officers and 
orderlies, and any inclination that I had to com- 
plain was taken away by the sight of ''walking 
cases" strolling in with an arm gone, or a hole in 
the cheek, or their jaw smashed, many far worse 
than I was, who would sit there waiting their 
turn to be examined, and then walk out again to 
the ambulance that carried them on to the next 
hospital. 

Next morning I was carried out to a motor- 
ambulance and started on the most painful trip 
of my life. The driver took reasonable care, but 
could not go too slow, for another load was waiting 
for him as soon as he could return, but I am sure 
that I felt every stone in that road. I got the 
attendant to wedge me in with pillows, but only 
by holding myself off from the wall with both my 
hands could I ease the btimp, and then I would 
wait with dread for the next one. I don't know if 
the other three fellows lying in the ambulance with 
me were as sore as I was, but I picture to-day the 
hours that those ambulances travel with wounded 
men as being added together and totalling a cen- 
tury of pain. Perhaps after the war is ended, 
when it is too late, some one may invent a motor 
ambulance on easy springs that will not multiply 
unnecessarily the pain of torn flesh and the grating 
edges of bones. 



274 "OVER THERE" 

Now comes the night in the casualty clearing- 
station at Heilly. Straight on to another operat- 
ing-table, but one in a sea of many — ten operations 
going on at once. Then began the probing for 
pieces of metal in my woimds. **Good God!" 
remarked the surgeon, "the best thing we can 
do is to nm a magnet over you. We'll never 
find them all otherwise." Nor did they, for I 
carry some of them still in my body as permanent 
souvenirs of the few words I had with Fritz. 
There was a nurse in the theatre with smiling 
face, laughing blue eyes, and tumbled curls fall- 
ing beneath her cap, and a brief acquaintance of 
one day was formed on the spot. She was attend- 
ing another case, and a wink and a smile served 
for introduction. She came and visited me in 
the ward that night and we chatted a brief hour, 
then she was gone, and I know not even her name. 
So ships meet, dip their flag, and pass into the 
night. 

In the bed opposite me in this hospital there was 
a German officer and he bellowed like a bull all 
night. We got pretty sick of his noise and told 
the medical officer in charge of the ward when he 
came on his rounds in the morning that if he did 
not chloroform or do something to silence the 
hound, we would. I suggested that he go and tell 
him that if he did not shut up he would be sent 
into the ward with his own privates. He did so 
and there was not another squeak from him. 



IN FRANCE 275 

After breakfast warm sweaters, helmets, scarfs, 
and mitts were issued to each of us and we were 
wrapped in warm blankets and carried out to a 
hospital-train near by. Before I left, however, I 
wrote out the report of my reconnoissance of the 
German trenches and despatched it by orderly to 
G. H. Q. All my possessions I carried in my hand 
in a small bag not nearly as big as a lady's knit- 
ting-bag. My kit was ** somewhere in France'* 
and my uniform had been cut off me and was prob- 
ably ascending as incense from some incinerator, 
in a ritual that was an appropriate end after much 
service. Everything was supposed to be taken out 
of my pockets (which I have no doubt happened) 
and sent to me (which certainly did not happen). 
I have no sympathy with the old sanitary sergeant 
who superintended the last rites in the passing of 
my much-lived-in clothes when he was slightly 
wounded by a bullet from a cartridge that some- 
how or other dropped into the fire at the same 
time. These incinerators frequently very nearly 
caused shell-shock to the sanitary squad, and they 
might just as well have been in the actual trenches, 
for in the gathering up of rubbish around the 
camp cartridges would frequently be thrown with 
it into the fire and explosions would ensue like the 
firing of a machine-gim, and bullets would whizz in 
all directions. Once a mule got shot, but it's a 
wonder that other flesh less valuable was not oc- 
casionally pimctured, for these incinerators were 



276 "OVER THERE" 

just on the edge of the camp and generally had 
a group round them of those who preferred being 
fire-tenders to ramrod-shovers. 

The hospital-train bore us with many inter- 
ruptions and frequent side-trackings toward the 
Channel and "Blighty." In England hospital- 
trains take precedence over all other traffic, but 
here in France there were many other things more 
important for the winning of the war than 
woimded men, so hospital-trains had to step aside 
and give the right of way to the shells, guns, 
cartridges, and food for the men still facing the 
foe. So my third night was spent on the rails 
lying snugly in a car wrapped in many blankets, 
and only disturbed by having to "smoke" a ther- 
mometer every two or three hours, and by the 
nurse rousing me at six '*ack emma" (a. M.) to have 
my face and hands washed, which is a mania that 
afflicts all nurses. A nurse has only one fear, 
that of displeasing the doctor, and though all 
should perish, everything must be spotless when 
he makes his rounds. A doctor is the only man 
who can awe a woman and obtain perfect obedi- 
ence. Of cotuse I am referring to them pro- 
fessionally, and not in their domestic relations. 
I knew a ntuse in a military hospital who woke 
up a patient, who was enjoying his first sound 
sleep for weeks, to administer a sleeping-draft. 
When she was remonstrated with she said "the 



IN FRANCE 277 

doctor ordered it." In France there has been 
since the war much "coal-saving," and had it not 
been that I had been careful to have with me emer- 
gency rations of blankets, I would have perished 
with the cold. I was told that the engine-drivers 
were given a commission on what coal they saved, 
so all the steam we got through the warming-pipes 
hardly took the frost off them. Only the men in 
the bottom cots were able to see the scenery we 
passed through, and we up-stairs could have 
murdered them with pleasure as they kept call- 
ing out: "By George! You should see this!" 
"That's the funniest sight I've seen in my life !" 
"Isn't that a lovely sight!" etc. But journeys, 
even on French railways, come to an end even- 
tually, though it only be second-class traffic, and 
with much joy did we welcome the news that we 
were running into Rouen. 

In the small hours of the morning with the 
mist still trailing through the streets we were 
driven to the Infirmary for Aged Women (which 
they had vacated) , and where was housed Number 
Eight General Hospital. After our labels had 
been examined and checked with our wounds, 
and it was quite evident that we were "les hommes 
blesses" and not baggage, we were carried up- 
stairs and allotted to our wards according to the 
part of the body in which we were wounded. 
They had some difficulty in my case, and as I 



278 "OVER THERE" 

feared that they might be carrying me from ward 
to ward all day and night I asked them to look on 
the other side of my tag to see if it was not marked 
in red: ''Fragile, With Care." There was in the 
ward where I eventually anchored a V. A. D. 
(Volimtary Aid Detachment) nurse who will 
ever live in my memory as the gentlest and most 
attentive of all that I have known. You could 
not raise your hand or turn in your sleep without 
her gliding noiselessly to your bedside to see if 
you wanted anything. A hundred times would 
she straighten the pillows, if you fancied you 
would get extra comfort another way, and she ever 
had ready a hot glass of milk to make you sleep 
the better. She was a Canadian, and if there are 
many more like her among the Canadian women, 
then the men of Canada are thrice blessed. Thus 
passed my fourth night in French hospitals. 

In the morning I saw through an open door in 
another ward a friend of mine whom I had parted 
with on landing in Egypt. I called an orderly 
to carry me through to an empty bed alongside 
him so that we might renew our friendship. He 
was badly wounded in the arm and face, but it 
was pleasant to meet again after many months. 
That was many months ago and the other day I 
met him again in New York. We have only been 
a short time together on each occasion, yet have 
continued our acquaintance on four continents, 
many months intervening between each meeting. 



IN FRANCE 279 

There was a great hullabaloo in my ward when the 
matron came in and found my bed empty. When 
she discovered where I was, she said: "Who 
gave you permission to come in here?" I re- 
plied: "No one said I was not to!" And any- 
way the pleasure was worth the commission of 
the crime ! That morning I was again picked up 
as a bundle and carried I knew not whither, leav- 
ing my friend behind. 

I was carried on board a British hospital-ship 
and lowered about three decks down. As plac- 
ards glared in one's eyes on every side about what 
to do in case of submarine attack, I did not like 
very much the idea of going down so far, for I 
always like to be able to depend upon myself in 
an emergency, and I was now as helpless as a log. 
They put me in a swinging cot, which was a great 
idea to prevent seasickness. We went slowly out 
the harbor to sea with our prow pointing toward 
"Blighty," the El Dorado of the wounded Tommy. 
'Twas little I saw of river, harbor, or sea from my 
berth in the nethermost depths of that vessel's 
hold. I was told we went across with all lights 
out. The days had passed when, in our folly, we 
painted our hospital-ships white with a green band 
and marked them with a red cross, or at night 
circled them with a row of green lights illuminat- 
ing a huge red cross near the funnel, for we had 
f oimd that we were only making them conspicuous 



28o "OVER THERE" 

as targets for the " human shark of the sea." 
There have been more hospital-ships sunk than 
troop-ships, for the troop-ship is armed and con- 
voyed, but the hospital-ship is an easy victim. 
The EngHsh port we entered was shrouded in fog, 
and wharf buildings never at any time look invit- 
ing, but we could nevertheless understand the ex- 
citement of our English companions, for it was 
Home to them, and to us ''dear old England," the 
brave heart of the freest empire this earth has 
seen, and after all where is the Britisher who does 
not thrill with pride at landing on the soil of those 
little islands which have produced a race so great, 
and foot for foot of soil there is no land on the 
earth that has produced so much wealth. We 
could smile with appreciation and not much sur- 
prise at the Tommy who remarked: "Say, Bill, 
don't the gas-works smell lovely!" 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

IN LONDON 

By hospital-train, the most comfortable ever ^ 
devised, did we rim into Waterloo Station — doors 
were opened, and men in gorgeous uniforms — 
much gold braid and silver buttons — came aboard. 
We thought that they were admirals and field- 
marshals at the very least, but it turned out they 
were only members of the Volunteer Ambulance 
Corps, men unfit for military service, who had 
provided their own cars and received not a penny 
of pay. With the tenderness of women they put 
us on stretchers and carried us out to their luxuri- 
ous ambulances. With each four men went a 
lady to attend to all their wants. Like a mother 
she hovered over us and you could see her heart 
was bursting with love for us far-out sons of 
empire. Through cheering crowds we drove and 
our Australian hearts leaped as we heard many 
cooees, which made us feel that we were not far 
from Home, for twelve thousand miles were 
bridged in thought by these homelike sounds 
and the knowledge that we were in the land from 
which our parents came and where we had many 
kinsfolk. I was assigned to the Third London 
General Hospital and out to Wandsworth Common 

281 



282 "OVER THERE" 

was I taken, where alongside Queen Victoria's 
school for officers' orphans had been built rows of 
comfortable huts linked up with seven miles of 
corridors, while the old orphanage itself contained 
the administrative headquarters. I was allotted 
to G ward, but did not know for days what a dis- 
tinction that was, for the sister in charge was none 
other than the late Queen of Portugal, and among 
the V. A. D.'s were several ladies and honorables. 
They were camouflaged, however, under the titles 
of ''sister" and ''nurse," and we had become too 
intimate to need ceremony before we discovered 
who they were in social life. In dressing our 
wounds, washing us, cleaning and scrubbing the 
floors they were as adept as if to the manner bom, 
but you could not fail to see that they sprung 
from generations of refinement. On one side of 
me was an Australian who had been hit on the 
side of the head by a shell, having therefrom a 
stiff neck. On the other side was an Irish padre, 
chaplain to an Australian battalion, and, of course, 
the life of the ward, and he had a greater fund of 
good stories than any other man, not excepting 
other priests, I have known. In an opposite bed 
was a Welshman with one leg who of necessity 
answered to the name of "Taffy," while next to 
him was a Londoner who had a leg that he would 
have been better without, for it had borne four- 
teen operations. In London we had the world's 
specialists for every bodily ill, and some of us who 



IN LONDON 283 

had complications were in the hands of ten doctors 
at the one time. There were skin specialists and 
bone specialists, nerve specialists and brain 
specialists, separate authorities on the eye, ear, 
nose, and throat, and it is a pity that a man is 
tied up in one bag, otherwise they might all have 
operated at the selfsame moment in separate 
rooms on the same man. 

There was one sister whom we all loved — I 
don't think; but she was only in our ward occa- 
sionally. Her real name was tmknown to most 
of us, but she will be remembered for long as 
*' Gentle Annie." She was so gentle that I have 
known only a few mules rougher, and never, after 
the first occasion, would I allow her to touch the 
dressings on my woimds. With so many to be 
done it was a painful performance even under 
kindly, sympathetic hands. We expressed our 
feelings toward her by giving her left-right every 
time she came into the ward and she would get 
mad at the second step. One day she called the 
matron, so we left-righted her as well. Then the 
doctor was brought in and we left-righted him, 
but he enjoyed the joke, perhaps realizing his help- 
lessness, for you can't very well pimish wounded 
men lying in bed except by depriving them of 
food, and we were most of us on diets anyway I 
The fact that we were Australians was held to be 
accoimtable for our misbehavior. 

There was a little nurse, mostly on night duty, 



284 "OVER THERE" 

who was dubbed *'Choom, " for she came from 
Yorkshire and had a rich brogue. But her heart 
was big enough for one twice her size, and she 
would always tuck us in and attempt to supply 
all our wants, however imreasonable. 

After an operation which I tell about in another 
chapter I was able to sit up and propel myself in 
a wheel-chair, and soon was having races with the 
champion chair-speeders of the other wards. 
There was a long inclined plane that was the 
cause of many accidents, for there was a sharp 
turn at the bottom and our chariots would get 
out of control. I have more than once turned a 
double somersault and it is a wonder I did not 
break my head, and several candid friends said 
it was cracked anyway. We had concerts in the 
hall every night, and as it was a couple of miles 
from our ward, we cripples who brought our own 
chairs with us would wait in the corridor for one 
of the blind to propel us along while we would do 
the guiding ourselves, giving directions to our 
steeds in nautical terms, such as: ''Starboard a 
little!'' ''Steady, steady, you idiot!" "Hard 
aport ! " " Quick ! " " Now, you darned fool, you 
jolly nearly smashed that window!" When we 
got to the door of the hall, we would be piloted 
into the area reserved for carriages, and so tightly 
were we jammed that it took about twenty min- 
utes to empty the hall, or twice as long if we tried 
to get out by ourselves. However, the concerts 



IN LONDON 285 

were worth while, and when Clara Butt or some 
other world-famed artist came along, we did not 
mind being late for dinner, the dishes of which 
were never a surprise if you remembered the day 
of the week. 

In our ward there were mostly leg injuries, and 
in the one next door arm cases, and hot and fast 
flew the arguments as to which it were worse to 
lose. We demonstrated our superiority one night 
by raiding them for their milk, all the attackers 
being on crutches, and they were unable to re- 
cover it; so we decided to our own satisfaction 
that we were the most useful members of society, 
though had we not drunk it so fast they might 
have got it. 

We had some very high talent in the hospital 
and our monthly gazette was a very creditable 
production. We had as one of the orderlies a 
Punch artist and he was always caricaturing some 
of us. The patients contributed drawings, poems, 
and articles, and I imagine that in years to come 
these little papers will be of some value, contain- 
ing the works of renowned artists and authors 
from many parts of the world. 

A good number from our ward were able to take 
taxi-rides into the city and would return at late 
hours, sometimes the merrier for the excursion. 
I have in my memory as I write, recollections of 
waking suddenly out of slumber to behold Taffy 
and a mad Australian waltzing to the strains of a 



286 "OVER THERE'' 

gramophone, each with only one leg, and then old 
Piddington would persist in rousing the ward that 
we might sing as a rotindelay: 



*'And when I die, 
Don't bury me at all — 
Just pickle my bones 
In alcohol. 

Put a bottle of RUM — {much emphasis here) 
At my head and feet. 
And then I know 
My bones will keep ! " 



My brothers are in different regiments. We en- 
listed from different states — one is in an English 
regiment — ^yet we all met on Good Friday in this 
hospital ward. They had seen in the paper my 
name among the casualties and, inquiring, had 
found out where I was and there we met, not hav- 
ing seen each other for many years. 

One day, like a bolt from the blue, came the in- 
timation that I was to be sent back to Australia 
in two days as being unfit for further service. I 
argued the point, went before the Medical Board, 
and gave each one separately a testimonial that 
would be no advertisement, but it was of no avail, 
and I realized that like a worn-out horse I was to 
be sent out of the fun. But to add injury to in- 
sult, I had had no opportunity to see London. 
What ! Go home to Australia and tell them I had 
been in London and not seen St. Paul's, or the 



IN LONDON 287 

Abbey, or anything ? So when I realized appeal 
yvas useless I got dressed and called a taxicab and 
went to see the sights of London. Never was a 
tourist trip conducted more systematically. On 
crutches I hobbled round St. Paul's and through 
the Abbey. I saw the Tower, the Albert Me- 
morial, and all the sights that I could remember 
or the taxi-driver think of sufficient importance to 
need a visit. I even went down Petticoat Lane. 
But most of all I did the theatres, four in one day, 
returning to the hospital at 1.30 a. m. Next day 
I repeated and enlarged the dose, returning a 
little later, but the following morning I was sum- 
moned before the O. C. He said: *'It is reported 
to me that you have been returning after hours. 
Why?" I said: "So would you, sir, if you were 
returning to Australia in two days and had not 
viewed London!" He said: "Well, it won't 
occur again, I hope." To which I replied: "Only 
to-night, sir!" But the boat was delayed, and 
I had two more days of strenuous existence in 
the metropolis of the world. 

Once again I entered a hospital-train, but this 
time I would have no mussing round me as if I 
were a helpless child, but went upright, as a man 
should, though on crutches. 

When we journeyed to the port there was one 
of our good old Australian coasters waiting to 
bear us back again — Home. The old A. U. S. N. 
steamer that I had so often travelled on from 



288 "OVER THERE" 

Brisbane to Sydney was now iinder command of 
the Australian navy and had the proud designa- 
tion of "His Majesty's Australian Hospital-Ship.'* 



CHAPTER XXIX 
THE HOSPITAL-SHIP 

Some people think that they have made a sea 
journey when they cross the EngHsh Channel, 
and Dover to Calais holds for many the memory 
of an age of misery. I don't suppose the pro- 
visions on these Channel steamers have very great 
inroads made upon them by the passengers. The 
soldiers have a song that well expresses experiences 
on this narrow stretch of water. 

" Sea, sea, why are you angry with me ? 
Ever since I left Dover, 
I thought the ship would go over " (etc.) 

but on the longer journey across the Atlantic 
from England to America there is more time to 
get one's sea-legs, and on the last day or two 
passengers begin to enjoy the sea journey. But 
this is quite enough of the sea for any one but 
an amphibian. The three weeks journey from 
America to Australia gets decidedly monotonous, 
and long before sighting Sydney Heads and en- 
tering the world's ''pearl of ports" every one has 
had his fill of the sea. But lengthen that jour- 
ney by three and you have had enough sea travel 
for a lifetime. 

289 



290 "OVER THERE 



>> 



Well, we left England and for an eternity sailed 
south, seeing land only on one day and smelling 
it for a week. Then we cliing to the end of 
Africa for seven days and then sailed east for a 
decade till Australia got in our way, and as it 
could not be passed without a long detour, we 
were deposited on its soil. In nine weeks we only 
called at two ports, Freetown on the west coast of 
Africa, and Durban on the east coast. Freetown 
has the usual strong combination smell of nigger, 
cinnamon, and decaying vegetation in an at- 
mosphere of heavy steam, that characterizes all 
tropical towns inhabited by our "black brother." 
We were told that this place had but a few years 
ago the pleasant subtitle of "The White Man's 
Grave." If you served one year here in the 
government service you were entitled to retire 
for life on a pension, but the likelihood was that 
long before your term was up you would retire 
to a six-foot-by-two allotment near the beach, 
in the company of countless predecessors. But 
science had been at work here, as at Panama, and 
wire gauze and the kerosene spray had captured 
the first trenches of yellow fever and malaria, and 
against these weapons of the medico all counter- 
attacks have been imavailing. Some strong hand 
was ruling in this town, for the streets were spot- 
less and the dogs lean. And, oh, how the nigger 
does hate cleanliness ! Evidently this town was 
free in a real sense because well disciplined. We 



THE HOSPITAL-SHIP 291 

were told that all the white people lived up on 
the hill that backed the town and many kind 
invitations of hospitality were sent to us ; so those 
whose wills were stronger than the enervating 
hand of the weather-master boarded the toy 
train and were carried up and up toward the stmi- 
mit of the hills above the steam heat, where the 
air seemed to be fanned from the very cooling- 
house of God. I had the pleasure of being enter- 
tained by a French priest who had been on the 
western front in the early days of the war, and he 
added to our knowledge more first-hand stories of 
the bestial Hims' ravaging of convents and rap- 
ing of nuns. The bishop of this protectorate could 
not do enough for us, and although we were not 
of his faith, he looked on us as children who were 
very dear to the heart of God because of our sacri- 
fices of blood and flesh for the right. 

We loaded ourselves down with curios, buying 
tiger-rugs, mats, bead-necklaces, tom-toms, and 
assegais. We strung these chiefly round our 
necks, as we had to have hands free to manipulate 
our crutches, and some of us looked more like the 
*'or clo' man" than smart army officers. Of 
course ''Bertie Gloom" had to suggest that we 
would have to pay more duty on the ''old junk" 
when we got it to Australia even than the price 
that the dealers had already robbed us of. 

At Durban the first thing we saw was a girl in 
white semaphoring like mad from the rocks. 



292 "OVER THERE" 

As we spelled out that she was trying to tell us 
that she was an Australian, we gave her three 
times three. Our difficulty in reading her mes- 
sage was not through her bad signalling but 
because of her speed. Doubt if we had a signaller 
on board so quick ! This was not the last of our 
indebtedness to her, for when we got into the 
wharf she had a regiment of Kaffirs with sugar- 
bags full of apples and oranges, and while we were 
still fifty yards from the wharf she began throwing 
them through the port-holes and into the hands 
of the men on deck. Not a half of one per cent 
fell short. She would have made a dandy 
bomber, and was a dandy all round. 

In fact, the people of Durban were the most 
hospitable and patriotic of any people we had 
met. A delegation of citizens and ladies came 
down to the boat to inform us that we were the 
guests of the city and that everything was free 
to us. And later on we found them not to have 
exaggerated in the slightest. No one would ac- 
cept money from us, though I don't think any of 
us tried to get diamond rings on these terms, but 
conductors on tram-cars and trains and motor- 
drivers and ticket- collectors at theatres one and 
all told us that our money was no good and gave 
to us their best seats. 

This did not apply to the rickshaws, for they 
were run by Zulus and charged by the hour. You 
would climb in, the shafts would go up in the air, 



THE HOSPITAL-SHIP 293 

trntil you thought you were going to be tipped out 
at the back, and a herculean Zulu, decorated 
with horns and red and white stripes so that he 
might look like the devil, whom he, in reality, 
outdevilled, would rest himself on the body of 
the rick and trot along at a rate of six or seven 
miles an hour, quite able to keep up the pace all 
day. As a matter of fact, they never wanted to 
know where you were going, and even if you told 
them to take you to the post-office they would go 
roimd and round the block, never stopping to let 
you out imless you gave them a good poke in the 
ribs with your stick. Somewhere in their brains 
was an infernal taximeter adding up the dimes, 
and like their first cousins with the leather caps, 
they v/ere determined to squeeze from you your 
last cent. 

Apart from the ordinary entertainments we 
found that fetes and feasts had been arranged for 
our delectation at the Y. M. C. A. and soldiers* 
clubs, so that every minute of our stay was 
crowded enjoyment. Even those of us who pre- 
ferred quieter pleasures were not without com- 
panions, and I know of no more delightful journey 
in the whole world than a trip by tram-car to the 
Zoo or out along the Berea. Durban has cer- 
tainly one of the most picturesque situations of 
any city in the world, and the art of man has been 
used with taste to reinforce nature: there are 
no homes in more delightful surroimdings with 



294 "OVER THERE" 

lovelier shrubber}?- and gardens than here. The 
people of Durban have not only an eye for beauty 
but they are very up to date and have a coaling 
apparatus that holds the world's record for speed 
in the coaling of ships. 

Besides these two ports we made two other 
stops on the journey, but these were where there 
was no land. The first one was wholly involun- 
tary, and not much to our liking, for through a 
breakdown in our engines we drifted helplessly for 
two days in the very centre of the danger zone of 
submarines. 

Our next stop had also some connection with 
these sharks, for we sighted floating in mid-ocean 
two life-boats and we went close to them but there 
was no one on board — only oars and water-casks. 
That's all — just another mystery of the sea — no 
name, no clew. Another day we sighted a steamer 
hull down, evidently water-logged, and we were 
going to her assistance when a cruiser came along 
and told us to go about our business and get out 
of harm's way as quickly as we could. This 
cruiser was just a little whiff of ''scented gum" 
and Australian air to us, for she was one of the 
best known of the Australian squadron. 

There is a lonely island in the mid-Indian Ocean 
which is the only land for thousands of miles, and 
it is an unwritten law of the sea that every ship 
going that way should steam round it and watch 
carefully for signal-fires or signs of himian occu- 



THE HOSPITAL-SHIP 295 

pation, for it is the place that shipwrecked 
sailors make for, and therefore there have been 
placed on the island several casks of fresh water 
and a supply of flour, and goats have been turned 
loose until they now overrun it. If a ship should 
find any one marooned thereon they are bound to 
replace all the water and flour that has been used. 
At one time there was a large fresh- water lake in 
the extinct crater of a volcano, but the sea has 
now broken through and made it salt. We 
steamed very close in, blew the siren, and had 
there been a pygmy there he would not have been 
overlooked as hundreds of trained eyes searched 
the rocks with glasses. We also got some fine 
photographs of this romantic isle in its waste of 
waters. 

The officers' ward was on the upper deck and our 
nurse had a twin sister in another ward and there 
was not a particle of difference between them. If 
I was lying on the deck and should call out to our 
nurse as she passed to get me something, she 
would generally say, "I'll ask my sister,'* for, 
of course, it was the wrong one. There was end- 
less confusion, for when we had a little tiff with 
our nurse, her sister would be sent to Coventry 
as well, and in a deck golf tournament there was 
great dispute over who won the ladies' prize, 
for both sisters claimed it. This matter could 
not be settled, as the umpire was not sure if he 
had credited the scores to the right one. The 



296 "OVER THERE '» 

prize was a set of brushes and we told them it 
would have to do for both, which was all right, as 
we were sure they wore each other's clothes any- 
way. They told us they had made a vow when 
they married not to live in the same town for the 
husbands' sake ! 

The routine of the days was deadly monotonous 
with a break of a concert on Saturday and church 
on Sunday. Unfortunately, we had on board only 
two who could sing and one who thought he could 
recite. And even of those whose performance 
exceeded their own opinion we got tired before 
the journey ended. There were others who at- 
tempted to entertain us who afflicted us so much 
that after three performances we gave them the 
choice of suicide or having their tonsils cut, so 
the concerts petered out and the audience at the 
last one did not pay for the moving of the piano. 

The shipping company who had transferred the 
ship to the Admiralty for the duration of the war 
still kept on the catering, and retained the same 
bill of fare as on their passenger trade. There 
was a good deal of variety and we always were 
able to get enjoyment with wondering what we 
would have for the next meal. They even helped 
us out a bit by calling the same dish by different 
names on different days and the same curry tasted 
differently under the names of ''Madras," "Ben- 
gal," "Simla," "Ceylon," "Indian," and "Bud- 
geree," and the cooking would even have satis- 



THE HOSPITAL-SHIP 297 

fied Americans. The nurses were seated at one 
long table in the saloon and formed an island 
completely surrounded by officers. The twins 
were on opposite sides of the table, and of course 
we always found after dinner that we had been 
signalling to the wrong one. We observed a good 
deal of ceremony and always stood to attention 
until the nurses were seated, but the nurse who 
came in late and made us interrupt an interesting 
conversation with a tender chicken got plenty of 
black looks. When the matron rose we stood 
to attention again while they filed out and then 
*' carried on" with the meal. 

One morning there was great excitement. Up 
from the lower decks the electric current of ex- 
pectancy ran until every one's steps quickened 
and those of us who were on wooden legs beat a 
constant tattoo on the decks. What means this 
eager, anxious thrill ? To-morrow we would 
sight Australia! Only 43,200 seconds — 720 min- 
utes — or 12 hours, and once again we would view 
the fairest continent planted by God in the seas. 
Mind you, the first sight of Australia (going that 
way) is not very attractive. Rottenest Island, 
outside Fremantle, is sandy and barren and 
really not much to boast about, yet had you 
spread before us a scene from the Garden of Eden 
it had not charmed us half so much. For this 
was part of Australia, the land that we all called 
home. Back of that, for three thousand miles, 



298 "OVER THERE" 

stretched the country that held our ain folk and 
love and joy and home and what a man fights 
for and worships. 

Every man had to be up on deck to see this 
sight. There were men there paralyzed, who had 
never moved during the whole long journey, but 
the saddest sight was to see the blind turning their 
sightless eyes in its direction and smiling with 
ecstasy, and maybe it looked more fair to these 
than to us who could see. How those boys 
cheered and cheered again ! What a new spirit 
pervaded the ship ! All day laughter and singing 
rang out, for there are no more patriotic troops in 
the world than the Australian soldiers, and, 
East, West, Hame's best. Like the old King of 
Ithaca we had wandered for years in many lands, 
but at last had returned home, and soon would 
have Penelope in our arms. 

But only the Westralians were really home, 
and some of these had two or three himdred miles 
to go ; for the rest of us there was still a fortnight 
more in the old ship as we sailed across the base 
of Australia to the eastern States. 



CHAPTER XXX ^ 
IN AUSTRALIA 

When the ship drew in at the Melbourne wharf 
I made up my mind to escape the fuss and hero- 
worship, as I was a Queenslander and knew that 
none of my folks were among the crowd waiting 
at the gates. I went to the military landing- 
officer and asked him if I could not go out another 
way and dodge the procession. He said the 
orders were that every officer and man was to be 
driven in special cars to the hospital. I then 
went down onto the wharf and approached one of 
the ladies v/ho looked as if she would play the 
game and I said to her: *'If I ride in your car, will 
you promise to do me a favor?" She said: "I 
would do anything for you.'* I then said: *'Well, 
let me out as soon as we get outside the gate." 
She demiirred a good deal but I reminded her that 
no Australian girl I knew ever broke a promise. 
When we got outside I boarded a tram-car, which 
had not gone far before it had to stop to let the 
procession pass. Of course, every one would see 
that I was a returned soldier, but there was noth- 
ing to show that I was just returned. I stood up 
in the tram-car with the rest of the passengers and 

299 



300 "OVER THERE" 

cheered and threw cigarettes and remarked loudly 
to all and sundry: ''Some more boys come back, 
eh?*' But my well-laid plans were entirely 
spoiled as my friends in the automobile called out, 
"Here, Knyvett, you dog, come out of that! 
Here's your place!" and I disgracefully subsided 
with many blushes, and had to endure all the way 
up to Melboiune the whispers and concentrated 
gaze of the whole tramful. I also "fell in" in an- 
other way, for when I rang up my uncle I found 
that he and his daughter were looking for me 
down at the wharf gates. 

Two years ago the site of Caulfield Hospital 
was a wilderness of weeds and sand. Now it is 
an area of trim lawns and blazing gardens, bowling- 
greens, croquet-lawns, and tennis-courts, with 
comfortable huts, the gift of the people of Mel- 
bourne to their wounded soldiers, costing several 
hundred thousand dollars. As I had served with 
Victorian troops I was assigned to this hospital, 
although my home was over a thousand miles 
away in the northern state of Queensland. All 
who were fit to travel were given fourteen days 
"disembarkation leave" to visit their homes, 
but twelve of these days I had to spend in travel 
and only had two days at home after such long 
absence. 

My woimds had healed but I was still paralyzed 
in my left leg, and the only attention I required 
was daily massage for an hour, and then another 



IN AUSTRALIA 301 

hour in the torttire-chamber with an electric 
current grilling me. After this was over, I would 
go into the city, do the block, have afternoon tea, 
give an address at the Town Hall recruiting-depot, 
go to a theatre, and then as there seemed nothing 
else to be done, would return to the hospital. 
Such was my programme for ninety days. Some- 
times I varied it by visiting the Zoo to commiser- 
ate with the wild animals on being caged. 

There were many red-letter days when I was 
entertained by friends; but I am afraid I only 
squeaked when they expected roars — ^to be lion- 
ized was too imusual not to have stage fright a 
little. 

The women in Australia are well organized and 
see to it that if a boy has a dull time it's his 
own fault. All the automobiles of the city were 
registered with the Volunteer Motor Corps, 
and each day certain of them were allotted to 
take wotuided soldiers for picnics. We would 
generally be driven to some pretty suburb and 
there would be spread before us a feast of good 
things. At the end of the meal some of us felt 
like the Httle boy who said to his mother after the 
party: *'I'm so tired, mummie, carry me up-stairs 
to bed, but don't bend me !" 

There were concerts every night for the stay-at- 
home, but I only managed to get to one, given 
by the pupils of Madam Melba, which was a 
feast of harmony. After the programme refresh- 



302 "OVER THERE 



»> 



ments were brought round by V. A. D.'s, whom 
the boys called, "Very Artful Dodgers," but it 
was not the ''Thank you for the cakes and tea !" 
that they dodged ! We had a cricket-match, one- 
armers versus one-leggers, and we one-leggers were 
allowed to catch the ball in our hats ; but the one- 
leggers lost as we were neariy all run out. Some 
of us being half-way down the pitch as the ball 
was thrown in, would throw one crutch at the 
wickets, knocking off the bails, when the imipire, 
who had no legs at all, would give his decision 
that we were "stumped.** 

A huge Red Cross carnival was held near the 
hospital which netted about fifty thousand dol- 
lars. We were guests of honor, and on this occa- 
sion in the enormous crowds found "Long John'* 
(one of the doctors, who was seven feet tall) very 
useful. He wondered why he was being followed 
about by several girls whom he did not know. 
We explained to him afterward that a good nimi- 
ber of us who had "meets" had thought out the 
ingenious scheme of telling the girl to meet us at 
"Long John," who would be the tallest object on 
the grounds. We told him that he didn't play 
the game properly by moving about so much, as 
our friends complained that they were just worn 
out following him round. 

The carnival was one enormous fair — there 
were row on row of stalls, decorated in the 
colors of all the Allied flags, with the girls serving 



IN AUSTRALIA 305 

at them dressed in peasant costiimes. The goods 
on the needlework-stalls represented the work of 
weeks — there were flower-stalls, sweet-stalls, prod- 
uce-stalls, book-stalls, and in and out of the 
crowds girls went selling raffle-tickets for every- 
thing under the sun — from tray-cloths to auto- 
mobiles and trips to Sydney. Ballyhoo-men 
stood at tent-doors, calling the crowd to come and 
see the performing kangaroo, the wild man from 
Borneo, or, ''Every time you hit him you get a 
good cigar!" "Him" was a grinning black face 
stuck obligingly through a hole in a sheet. There 
were groups of tables and chairs under bright- 
colored imibrellas, every here and there, where 
good things to eat were served all day. The fun 
lasted well into the night, when there were con- 
certs, and dancing, and even the one-legged men 
tried to dance. 

I don't think I had any other meals at the hos- 
pital than breakfast which I always had in bed. 
There was an orderly officer who was very un- 
popular as he had been months round the hospital 
and missed many chances of going to the front. 
One day the men played a trick on him. When 
he came into the dining-room to ask if there were 
any complaints one of them picked up a dish 
which was steaming hot and said: *'Look here, 
sir! What do you think of this?" He picked 
up a spoon and tasted it. "Why, my man, 
that's very good soup ! You're lucky to get such 



304 "OVER THERE" 

good food." "But, sir, it's not soup, it^s dish- 
water!" (Curtain.) 

At last the Medical Board sat on my case and 
their decision left me gasping for breath, for they 
recommended that I be discharged as permanently 
imfit for further military service. But nature 
sometimes plays sorry pranks with medical de- 
cisions. Not more than a week after this, move- 
ment suddenly returned to my leg and I threw 
away my crutches and was able to walk almost 
as well as ever. About ten days after leaving 
hospital I had sailed back for France via America, 
but have not at the time of writing been able to 
get across the Atlantic. 



CHAPTER XXXI 
USING AN IRISHMAN'S NERVE 

I HAVE been saving this for a separate chapter; 
for besides a natural hesitation in admitting that 
I am not ''all there," I want to have sufficient 
space in which to express my gratitude to the doc- 
tor who performed the operation and to the "im- 
known" who had his leg amputated, so providing 
me with a portion of his anatomy that I was in sore 
need of. Of course, in these days when surgical 
miracles are happening continually there is noth- 
ing outstanding about this operation, and surgeons 
have wonderful opportunities in a military hos- 
pital, where there are so many spare human parts 
lying about to patch up a man with. I quite be- 
lieve that from three smashed men they could 
make a whole one, which, after all, would not be 
such a marvel when one remembers that they are 
continually grafting bones and nerves, and I for 
one would not like to say that in the next war 
they may not be able to cure a man who has lost 
his head entirely, and as a matter of fact, one of 
the San Francisco papers informed its readers 
(and as in this country the impossible of yesterday 
happens to-day, no doubt they believed it to be 
true) that I had had another man's leg grafted 

305 



3o6 **OVER THERE" 

onto me. After such a statement it is an anti- 
climax to have to inform the public that it was 
only a portion of nerve that was grafted. 

I had been lying in hospital several weeks be- 
fore I got worried about the fact that I could not 
move my leg. Then when the great-hearted, 
plain-faced doctor who was attending to me said, 
"How's the man of many woimds this morning ?" 
I asked: ''Why is it my leg is dead ?" He said: 
''We're only waiting for the wounds to heal imtil 
we test it." And sure enough a day or two later I 
was put in the electric chair for "reactions.** 
When the ciu-rent was put onto my right leg I 
howled and twisted, but with twice the current on 
my left leg nothing happened, as I felt nothing. 
Some days later a great nerve specialist operated 
on me and when I came back to this workaday 
world from the land of fancy, whither the ether 
had borne me, I was informed that a portion of 
nerve had been grafted in my leg and that in 
about three months I might be able to use it. 

At this time I had no idea from whom the por- 
tion of nerve came. I did not like to inquire, for 
I was afraid that if I met its previous owner I 
might be prejudiced against it. Every portion of 
one's body is so closely related to the rest that I 
was afraid if his face did not suit my fancy I 
might subconsciously come to resemble him. But 
whenever I met one-legged men in the corridors 
or concert-hall I would try to pick out the one 



USING AN IRISHMAN'S NERVE 307 

I would most like to receive such an intimate gift 
from. Some of these had a refined, delicate ap- 
pearance, and I immediately feared that I would 
grow tenderfooted, while others looked like 
pugilists and I immediately imagined my foot was 
becoming calloused and might become longer 
than the other. 

So purposely I remained in ignorance of the 
religion and nationality of my new nerve. Once 
for a whole day I sweat blood lest it might be a 
German, and then I plucked up courage to ask if 
there were any Germans in the hospital, and 
when I learned that there were not I slept like a 
child for many hours. On Saturdays I felt it 
might be a Jew or a Seventh-Day Adventist, but 
then it did not work on other days either, so I 
thought it must be I. W. W., ''I Won't Work" as 
they are called in Australia. Then one day I was 
sure it was from one of the same religion as myself, 
for that leg was perspiring alone, and in the out- 
back country in Australia, where the temperature 
reaches one hundred and twenty degrees in the 
shade, the Presbyterian Chiu*ch is sometimes 
called "Perspiration." At any rate, I read in a 
paper that in one town the three churches were 
Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Perspiration. As 
to nationality it might be Scotch, as I had to be 
*'verra cautious'' in moving it, or English, being 
so ''sensitive'' to the touch. It was only after 
movement returned that I was quite sure it was 



3o8 "OVER THERE" 

Irish ! For ever since then the Home Rule con- 
troversy has been going on in my body, for when 
I want to place my foot in a certain position, it's 
bound to try and go some other way. You can 
see from all this that I don't know much about 
nerves, and I even wonder sometimes whether, if 
they put in my leg a nerve from an arm, I might 
not try to shake hands with it like the armless 
man in the circus, or, if it happened to belong 
to the opposite leg, whether or not I would be 
pigeon-toed. 

I sometimes wonder if the donor of this piece of 
nerve still "feels it" in his own leg, for, months 
after a man has lost his leg, he still feels it there. 
There was one man in the hospital who had lost 
both legs and screamed with pain every night 
because his toes were twisted, and it was only 
when they had dug up his feet and straightened 
out his toes that he got rest. 

There are nerves and nerves, and I am sure that 
the grafting in me of this piece from the nerves 
of an Irishman has given to me more nerve than 
I ever had in my life before, else how could I have 
written this book ? 



PART VI 
MEDITATIONS IN THE TRENCHES 



CHAPTER XXXII 
THE RIGHT INFANTRY WEAPONS 

I KNOW scores of men who have been months 
in the trenches and over the top in several attacks 
who have never fired a shot out of their rifles. 
In fact, it is very, very rarely that the man in the 
trenches gets a chance to aim at an enemy at a 
greater range than a hundred yards. There are 
thousands of men whom I know who believe that 
the long-range rifles used in our army to-day are 
useless weapons. A much more serviceable gun 
to repel a counter-attack would be one firing buck- 
shot like a pimip-gim. The bullets from our 
high-velocity rifles frequently pass through the 
body of a man at a close range and he is not even 
conscious of having been hit and continues to 
come on with as great fury as before. The 
pellets scattering from a shotgun at a range of 
a hundred yards or less would do him more 
damage and be far more certain to stop him. In 
an actual charge our present rifle is more than use- 
less — ^it is an encimibrance, and when at grips 
with the enemy in his own trenches it is often a 
fatal handicap. With a bayonet at the end it is 
far too long, and in a trench two to four feet 

wide it cannot be used with much effect. I have 

311 



312 "OVER THERE" 

known our men repeatedly to unship the bayonet 
and take it in their hands, throwing the rifle away. 
Another danger is that men will fire their rifles 
down an enemy trench and these high-velocity 
bullets will pass right through the bodies of the 
one or two of the enemy in front of him and fre- 
quently kill his own comrade beyond. Remem- 
ber, in a fight in a trench friend and foe are mixed 
up together and many of oiu- men have been im- 
consciously shot by their fellows. In every regi- 
ment a small squad of picked marksmen only 
should have these long-range rifles, with the addi- 
tion of telescopic sights. The average man does 
not take exact aim before firing, and nearly all 
the shots go high. If it were not for bombs and 
machine-gims the enemy could always succeed in 
getting to our trenches with very little loss. It 
should be remembered, too, how closely, in an at- 
tack, we follow oiu* own barrage — ^it is impossible 
to see to fire through it. 

The system of barrage fighting that we now use 
has made warfare as much a hand-to-hand business 
as it was in olden times and we must go back a 
good deal to old-fashioned weapons, as we have to 
a great extent to old-fashioned armor. The picked 
snipers or sharpshooters could be placed in points 
of vantage to pick off any of the enemy who ex- 
posed themselves and a score of them in each com- 
pany would get very few shots in a day. 

Another weapon that infantry should be armed 
with is a hand-bayonet as there is no advantage 



THE RIGHT INFANTRY WEAPONS 313 

whatever in the long reach that our present rifle 
and bayonet gives. As a matter of fact, many of 
our men have been killed through driving their 
bayonet too far into the body of their opponent, 
not being able to draw it out, thus being helpless 
when attacked by another of the enemy. It is no 
use telling men not to drive their bayonet in more 
than three or four inches, for in the speed and fury 
of a charge they will always drive it in right up 
to the hilt, and while we retain this out-of-date 
weapon we should certainly put a guard on it not 
further than six inches from the point. I have 
used a hand-bayonet which sticks out from the 
fist like a knuckle-duster and is about six inches 
long. The shock of the blow is taken on the fore- 
arm which also has an iron plate nmning down it 
on which to receive the thrust of one's opponent. 
This is the nattiral weapon for the Anglo-Saxon, 
as the fist and arm is used exactly as in boxing. 
If an enemy comes at you with a bayonet it is 
the natural and easy thing to throw up your arm 
and ward it off. The iron plate saves your arm 
being cut; you are in tmder his guard; seize his 
rifle with your left hand and punch with your 
right, driving the knife home the six inches, which 
is all that is necessary. I have been in and seen 
a number of bayonet charges and I am quite 
satisfied that the parries and thrusts that we teach 
the infantryman are only of value to get him used 
to handling his rifle. After that it would be a 
good thing for him to forget them. 



314 "OVER THERE" 

There are only two things that it is essential to 
remember when you go into a bayonet charge. 
The first is that the most determined man will win, 
I have known champion men-at-arms killed by a 
bayonet in their first charge and other Httle fel- 
lows who were no good in the practice combats 
kill their man every time. If you go into a 
bayonet charge with the idea of disarming your 
opponent and taking him prisoner you will most 
certainly be killed. But if you are quite sure in 
your own mind that you are going to kill every 
man who comes against you, you will do it. Your 
determination impresses itself upon the man you 
attack and he will be beaten before you reach him. 
The other thing that it is wise to remember is to 
make your opponent attack you on your left side. 
If he attacks you on the right you have to parry 
him and then thrust, but for an attack on the left 
side the action of parrying will bring the toe of your 
butt into his jaw or ribs, disabling him, and it is 
a good thing to use your knee at the same time. 

The general-staflE officers who decide how an 
army should be weaponed never do the actual 
fighting and few junior officers or men feel com- 
petent to offer their advice. I am quite confident 
that a majority of the fighters would agree with the 
foregoing opinions, and I would like the chance 
of taking a company armed as I have suggested 
into action, and would be quite satisfied of their 
superiority to any troops on the front. 



CHAPTER XXXIII 
THE FORCING-HOUSE OF BESTIALITY 

The Germans have given to us an illustration, 
though such was not needed by thinking men to 
convince them of its truth, of the fact that the 
beast in humanity only requires encouragement 
to make us more bestial than any wild thing of the 
jungle or even the filthy cur of the streets. If any 
man takes as his guiding principle the devilish 
doctrine that the ''end justified the means" he 
will soon become a menace to his fellows and any 
good impulses that he may originally have will 
pass away. The German Government made 
savagery, brutality, and bestiality a deliberate 
policy, and now it is their unconscious impulse. 
Germany is paying a terrible penalty in the 
degradation and demoralization of her whole 
people for having given the direction of the coun- 
try into the hands of the Devil in exchange for 
power, and the German army is to-day a forcing- 
house for bestiality and there is no atmosphere in 
the whole world that so conduces to evil. In the 
beginning of the war letters and statements of 
prisoners showed that there were then many de- 
cent Germans who were horrified at the abomina- 
tions they had seen and committed at the com- 

31S 



3i6 



"OVER THERE'* 



mand of their government. But latterly, you 
cannot find any trace of this feeling. Now they 
gloat over it. 

There is no one in the world to-day except those 
who are of like mind who do not know that the 
story of the German atrocities is true, for Germany 
has admitted enough crimes to convince any sane 
man that she would stick at nothing. No action 
could be too cruel, no deed too beastly, no torture 
too diabolical, no insult too keen, no impulse too 
filthy, no disfigurement too hideous, no vandalism 
too shocking, no destruction too complete, no 
stooping too low that Germany would hesitate 
to do where she has opportimity. When Germany 
boasted of the murder by drowning of women and 
babes on the high seas she proclaimed to the world 
that she was a criminal, and we do not need to. 
have any other crimes proven to convince us that, 
while there is such a thing as justice, she must not 
go impimished.- 

Criminals have been forgiven, but not before 
they are repentant; Safety, as well as Justice , de- 
mands that the mtu*derer, the assassin, the raper 
shall not go free. Germany has not only com- 
mitted all these crimes, but her theologians and 
professors have condoned them. The man who 
coimsels forgiveness to Germany adds hypocrisy 
to the will to commit the same crimes. To for- 
give, we are told, is divine, but the Divine does 
not forgive without repentance. Has Germany 



FORCING-HOUSE OF BESTIALITY 317 

shown signs of repentance yet ? Well, then, the 
man who talks of forgiveness to Germany before 
she is on her knees begging for forgiveness is an 
enemy of peace and a condoner of crime. 

It is so easy for those who have not suffered to 
tell the victims "to forgive." We do not go in 
nightly dread lest in the morning we should have 
to rake among the ruins of our homes for the man- 
gled body of our baby ! We do not have to work 
in daily fear lest we should have to return to 
an empty house whence wife or daughter have 
been dragged by brutal hands ! For three years 
the people of London and Paris and thousands of 
other cities have never known but that at any 
moment their house might be brought down in 
ruins about their ears, entombing all that they 
hold dear ! For three years the men of northern 
France and Belgium have never known but that 
while they were working, tmder compulsion, 
against the life of their own blood and country in 
a German mimition factory, some soldiers might 
not be calling at their homes to take the woman 
that they love God alone knows where ! These 
very things have happened to tens of thousands. 
Week after week the human hawks come over 
London, and ever the toll of civilians and women 
and babies done to death grows larger! One 
himdred thousand yoimg girls were taken from 
Lille and other cities away from knowledge or 
protection of their kin, and until recently we had 



3l8 "0\TR THERE" 

no news of any of them, but some have been 
thrown into Switzerland, of no further use to 
Germany; used up Hke sucked lemons, they 
are cast aside for the Swiss to feed. Germany 
lias in her maw to-day more than ten millions of 
slaves. 

In America or AustraHa there are no hospitals 
where He thousands of girls too young to become 
mothers who have been raped. We have not 
hundreds of boys who will never become men. A 
young girl said to me: "There is a baby coming; 
it is a boche; when it is bom I will cut its throat !" 
A woman showed me on an estaminet floor the 
blood-stains of her own baby butchered before 
her eyes. These were French women, not ours. 
But what if they had been ? Your sister ! Your 
mother ! Your wife ! And they might have been 
but for the accident of geography. Would you 
then have felt as bitter as these people ? Or 
would you still have kindly feelings to Germany 
and not want to ''humiliate her." There may be 
beings who could see daughter violated or brother 
mutilated without taking personal vengeance, 
but such should not be permitted to breathe the 
air vdth MEN. 

The only people who have a right to say what 
punishment shall be meted out to Germany for 
her misdeeds, are the women of France, of Bel- 
gium, of Poland, of Serbia, of Rumania, of Italy, 
who have suffered these things; and if any one. 






FORCING-HOUSE OF BESTIALITY 319 

King or President, Parliament or Pope, dares 
stand between these people and their just wrath 
they deserve to be pilloried in the minds of men as 
condoners of crime, as accessories after the fact. 

The only chance for permanent peace, and guar- 
antee that these abominable crimes shall not be 
committed again, is that we should so punish 
Germany that she shall realize **that war does not 
fay'' and that the whole earth may know that 
no nation can commit these atrocities and go 
impunished. 



CHAPTER XXXIV 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEAR 

The observation of men in many circumstances 
of peril has quite convinced me that it is those who 
are most afraid that do the bravest deeds. I do 
not mean that the fact that they are afraid in- 
creases the difficulty of the doing, because it 
lessens it. It is fear that drives men to heroism ! 
And many a man attempts the superhuman feat 
of courage not to show to others that he is no 
coward, but as evidence in the court of his own 
judgment, to disprove the accusations of con- 
science, which asserts he is craven. The old 
illustration of one soldier who accused another of 
having no bravery because he had no fear, by say- 
ing, *'If you were as much afraid as I am you 
would have nm away long ago," is not true to life, 
for it is the man of dulled feelings that is the first 
to run, and the "man who is afraid of being afraid " 
who stays at his post to the last. I have ever 
found that the best scouts, men who must gen- 
erally work alone in the dark, are those of highly 
strung nervous temperaments. I have noticed, 
too, that oiu: best airmen were of the same type, 
for if you go into any mess of pilots on the front 
you will see them always fidgeting, their hands 

320 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEAR 321 

never still, betraying nervousness. I have gone 
down the trench before a charge and seen the men 
with teeth chattering and blanched faces, but at 
the appointed second these men go over the top, 
none hesitating, every man performing prodigies 
of valor; not one but was a hero, yet not one that 
was not afraid. 

There must be something wrong with the make- 
up of a man who imder modem artillery-fire 
is not afraid. There are no nerves that do not 
break down eventually imder the strain, but the 
man who shrinks from a shadow, and shudders at 
the touch of cold mud does his job with care and 
walks imhesitatingly into the mouth of hell. I 
have seen our signallers mending the telephone- 
wire imder fire; each time it woidd break they 
would ctuse and tremble, but immediately go 
out and repair it accurately, slowly, no skimped 
work, repeating the performance again and again. 
There is in our spirit some reserve force which 
on occasion the will uses to stiffen resolution — 
the second wind of determination. 

Fear is the ''pin-gative of the soul"! There 
is nothing so wholesome for a man as to be 
''scared to death" ! Nothing that so drives out 
the littlenesses that poison his life and set up the 
toxaemia of selfishness. Many a man that before 
the war made the acquiring of wealth or the gain- 
ing of the plaudits of his friends his chief aim, 
now finds that fhese things have no appeal for 



322 "OVER THERE'* 

him. For he has been to the edge of life and 
looked into the abyss, and fear has stripped from 
him the rags of self -adornment ; and standing 
naked between the worlds his soul has foimd that 
it needs no beautifying but the cleansing of self- 
forgetfulness. 

This war is one of the greatest blessings this 
world has ever known, for it has brought to us fear 
of selfish force, fear of the engines of our own con- 
struction, fear of isolation in world politics, fear of 
secret diplomacy, fear of an imguarded peace, fear 
of an imprepared future, fear of an imdisciplined 
people, fear of an irresponsible government, and, 
above all THE FEAR OF FORGETTING !. 

But there is^ another reason why a man in battle, 
though afraid, does not fail. The fact is that men 
in a regiment or an army are not imder the domina- 
tion of their own will at all, but of the collective 
will of the whole. That is why some regiments 
are so anxious to keep alive their traditions, and 
emblazon their battles on their colors. That is 
why we devote so much time in the training of 
young recruits to the knowledge of the esprit de 
corps of the regiment. That is why the regulars 
are always the best fighters. It is not their longer 
training, for that is a handicap with new methods 
of warfare. It is not because of their superior 
discipline, for the territorials have not lacked per- 
fect discipline. But there is an atmosphere in 
the regular regiments that makes one brother 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FEAR 323 

that goes into the regtilars a better soldier than 
the other that enHsts in militia. This atmosphere 
is compounded of pride in past achievements and 
confidence that the colors that have never been, 
lowered, though shot down on many a field, can- 
not be shamed to-day. The victors of many 
engagements have an enormous advantage in 
battle. No one expected anything but the most 
heroic courage from the British regulars who had 
never failed when called upon, but every one was 
not a little anxious how "Kitchener's" would 
stand their first ordeal of fire. 

Every mass of men has, besides the will and 
mind of each one of them, a collective will and 
mind. Every town has this — ^who has not felt, on 
entering a town and viewing its shops and people, 
a certain pushing toward behavior — some towns 
tend to make one frivolous, others grave. I know 
a city which, every time I enter, makes me think 
when last I was in chtirch, while there is another 
in which I always want to dance or view the Follies. 
Have you not seen coimtrymen in town, whose 
clothes proclaim that they have never been out 
later than nine o'clock in a lifetime, trying to be 
the gay Lothario, drinking wine in a cabaret? 
Every house has its personality made up of the 
collective minds of the people who inhabit it. 
Take your child to one strange house and he will 
fidget uncomfortably on the edge of his chair;, 
but take him to another, just as strange, and he 



324 "OVER THERE" 

will romp about without hesitation. Children 
are like the canaries we use to detect the presence 
of poisonous gases, most sensitive to atmosphere. 
In the same way an army has ONE WILL, and 
that is why in battle you will not see one man fail, 
or there will be panic and all will fail. In every 
army there are individual men weak in resolution 
who, left to themselves, would run away; but as 
the MIND of the army as a whole is coin-ageous, 
so they are swept along in spite of themselves. 
The German army has ONE MIND for bestiality, 
and the AlHed army has ONE MIND for victory. 



CHAPTER XXXV 

THE SPLENDOR OF THE PRESENT 
OPPORTUNITY 

To those who are thrilled by the old-time 
tales of adventurous chivalry or moved by the 
narrative of high endeavor and heroic achieve- 
ment for some noble ideal, I bring a conception 
of the marvellous glory of these present days. 
We have been wont to sing of the times when 
thousands left home and comfort on a Holy 
Crusade, but the Crusaders of these days are 
numbered in milHons. 

Never were there such stirring times as these, 
never since the first tick of time have the hoiu-s 
been so crowded ! /Never before did so many 
men live nobly or die bravely, v The young 
knights from many lands are seeking the Holy 
Grail, and finding it in forgetfulness of self and 
in sacrifice for their fellows. You and I are liv- 
ing to-day among the deeds of men that make the 
deeds of the heroes of past times pale into insigni- 
ficance. Never were there bred men of such 
large and heroic mould as the men of to-day. 

Here^s a trench — on which a shell falls — and 
where one shell falls another always follows in 
the same place; — the shell blows in a dugout and 

32s 



326 "OVER THERE" 

there is little chance that the men sheltering 
therein shall be alive, yet those on either side, 
knowing that another shell will fall in a second 
or so, in utter forgetfulness of self leap in and 
with their bare fingers scrape away the dirt lest 
haply there should be some life yet remaining in 
this quivering, mangled himian flesh. 

Oh ! What chances the men of earth have 
to-day to be as God ! The highest conception 
any religion has given us of God is that he is one 
that would sacrifice himself — "Greater love hath 
no man than this that he lay down his life for his 
friends" — and to-day they're doing it by the 
million. Every moment is adding names to the 
honor-roll of heaven of men who follow in His 
steps. 

Have you conceived that the uniting together 
of the nations that love peace in this struggle 
will do more to guarantee peace in the future than 
anything else that has ever happened in world 
politics, — that it will join France, Britain, and 
America into a trinity of free peoples who will 
prevent war, at least for many generations? We 
are being bound together by the strongest tie 
that ever tied nation to nation, that ever bound 
one people to another, not by political treaties 
that may be torn up, but by the great tie of com- 
mon blood shed in a common cause on a common 
soil. That narrow lane that stretches from Switz- 
erland to the sea is the great international ceme- 



THE PRESENT OPPORTUNITY 327 

tery, and for many generations it will be the 
Mecca of pilgrimages from all our countries. 
The wreaths of America will mingle with the im- 
mortelles of France and the flowers from Bri- 
tain and the pilgrims shall there get to know, 
understand, and love each other as they engage 
in the holy task of paying a common tribute to 
their common dead. Shall not the mingling blood 
of Frenchmen, Britons, and Americans make the 
flowers of peace to grow? They never had such 
soil before. 

There is being created, also, in all our countries 
a new aristocracy — the aristocracy of courage. 
We never had a chance up till now to prove who 
were our real, our best people, and we have been 
accustomed to measure our citizens by the false 
and small standards of wealth, birth, and intellect. 
Well ! There has been given to us to-day a new 
standard whereby we can measure ourselves, the 
standard of courage, sacrifice, and service. No- 
body in England cares to-day whether you are 
descended from WilHam the Conqueror or not! 
No one will care in America whether your an- 
cestor came over in the Mayflower, or whether 
he signed the Declaration of Independence! 
Every American has a chance to-day of signing 
a far greater declaration than that great one of 
'76 — the declaration of personal wilHngness to 
sacrifice all on the altar of liberty. In England, 
in America, in Australia, in all the countries of the 



328 "OVER THERE" 

world in the days that are to be, men and women 
will make their boast in this one thing, or have no 
cause for boasting at all, of the part that they had 
in this fight, the greatest fight that has ever been 
waged for liberty, for righteousness, and for the 
virtue of womanhood. 

What a splendid opportunity it is for us to be 
able to personally pay the price of liberty. How 
easy to forget that freedom has either to be earned 
by ourselves or enjoyed because some one else 
has paid the price for us. Had we not forgotten 
in our countries that the democracy that we boast 
of is no credit to us because it was won by the 
blood of other men ? Men died that we might be 
able to govern ourselves ! Women carried heart- 
ache and loneliness to the grave that we might 
make our own laws ! 

Liberty ! Such an easy word to mouth, but 
how precious in the sight of God ! Libert}^ is one 
of the treasures of heaven and only committed to 
men at great cost, lest they should undervalue it. 

In these great and wonderful times there has 
been given to us the glorious opportimity to earn 
our own liberty, to prove our own personal right 
to citizenship in a free country. 

You may not be able to pay in good, red blood, 
you may not be able to pay much in the coin of 
the republic, but if each of us does not pay in 
whatsoever coin we have, there will come soon to 
us the days in which we shall realize that we are 



THE PRESENT OPPORTUNITY 329 

thieves and robbers, enjoying that to which we 
have no right, won so hardly with the deaths and 
wounds of men and the salt tears of women. 
In the New World that shall be bom after the 
birth-pangs of the present days, we shall realize 
that we have no place, our souls shall shrink and 
shrivel as we gaze on the honor scars of those who 
have paid, and we shall be elbowed to the out- 
skirts of the crowd, as the people bow before the 
men whom the President and people delight to 
honor — the men sightless, the men limbless, the 
memory of the men lifeless. 



CHAPTER XXXVI 
NOT A FIGHT FOR ^'RACE" BUT FOR " RIGHT '^ 

I HAVE no patience with the waterish sentiment 
that suggests that the Hnes of the Germans in 
America and AustraHa have fallen in hard places 
because they are called upon to take up arms 
against their own blood. For this is not a war 
of race, but of right ! It is not a war of Britons, 
Americans, and French against Germans and 
Austrians ! It is a war of men in all nations 
against beasts ! 

There is something in all of us that is stronger 
than kinship, higher than citizenship — manhood — 
and every one who is a man, though he be of Ger- 
man blood will join us in this struggle against the 
monster that has devoured women and children 
and many fair lands. 

We have in the Australian army one general of 
German blood, another of Austrian, and hundreds 
of men of both, but they have been fighting loyally 
with us, because they were men and could not be 
held back from striking at tyranny and wrong. 
Remember, in the Australian army all are volun- 
teers. 

Every one now knows what Germany stands 
for and the menace she is to the future of the world 

330 



NOT A FIGHT FOR "RACE" 331 

if her power is not destroyed, and every one who 
does not help to defeat her is an ally of the Kaiser 
and helping him to win the war. 

The Judge is to-day separating the sheep from 
the goats, not according to nationality, but ac- 
cording to how they stand in this strife for right, 
for never was there a cause so divinely right as 
the cause of the Allies, and never a cause so devil- 
ishly wrong as that of the Germans. 

The great mass of the German people have 
shown themselves to be on the side of evil, but 
every German in our own countries is given a 
chance in the present days to prove himself a 
man who hates brutality and cruelty and wrong, 
or by standing aloof from helping us show that 
he has the will to do these things as his kinsman 
in France. These should be given the same medi- 
cine as the Kaiser's millions "over there." We 
should also root out the Kaiser's secret allies in our 
midst, some of them not of German blood, who 
for pay do his dirty work, never forgetting also 
that the neutral and the lukewarm at this present 
juncture are also our enemies and have their hands 
stained with the blood of our kin who die for this 
cause. 

Washington when he called on the English 
colonists in this country to resist the German 
mercenaries of the German King of England did 
not bewail the fate that compelled them to fight 
against their own country and where their kin 



332 **OVER THERE" 

dwelt. No ! For his cause was just and just- 
minded men must support it though a sword 
pierced their own hearts. 

Lincoln when he called on the people of the 
Northern States to free the slaves did not exempt 
those who had friends or kin down South, but he 
called on every one who was free to strike a blow 
for the freedom of other men, though in so doing 
they should be cutting off their own right arms. 

In this war we are not only fighting to free mil- 
lions who are held in a far worse slavery than ever 
the negro was in, but we are fighting for our own 
liberty and that of our children, which has been 
directly attacked. Not all Germans are bestial 
and cruel, with no regard for honor, but just how 
many of them are not remains for the American 
and Australian citizens of German descent to 
prove. 

Not all Britishers and Americans and French- 
men are willing to sacrifice themselves in our 
righteous cause — there are traitors even here, 
and these I would rather shoot than the enemy in 
France. 

There never was a more damnable doctrine 
promulgated on the face of the earth than that of 
*'My coimtry, right or wrong." Free men could 
never subscribe to such a doctrine. We have no 
right to call upon people to take up arms because 
the government has declared war, but because the 
government was right in declaring war. Those 



NOT A FIGHT FOR "RACE" 333 

who oppose the government in this are not traitors 
to a party or a majority, but traitors to the coun- 
try and to right. 

The two great camps in which the world is 
divided to-day will be known in history as those 
who loved liberty more than life and those who 
loved dominion more than right. Maybe the 
names of the races will be forgotten but the mem- 
ory of the opposing principles will abide. 



CHAPTER XXXVII 
"KEEPING FAITH WITH THE DEAD" 

While here and there politicians grow faint- 
hearted, the army fights on with cheerfulness. It 
would be a cure for pessimism of the deepest 
black to go to the trenches for a while. There 
all is cheery optimism, no doubt at all about the 
final outcome, and no talk of peace. I have never 
heard one man in the army talk or hint of peace 
or dream of it, for they know that it cannot be 
yet. The only people who shall declare peace will 
be the army — ^no politicians, no parliament, or 
government — for the army to-day is a citizen 
army and large enough to change any government 
that is weak-kneed, and they shall allow parlia- 
ment to grant peace only when they are ready, 
and that shall not be imtil we have gained a cer- 
tain victory. 

Prime Minister Lloyd George gave us three 
words over a year ago that are still the beacon- 
lights of the army, and we shall not reach port 
imless they are our guiding lights. They were 
reparation, restoration, and guarantees, and any- 
thing less would be a betrayal of France and Bel- 
gium and an insult to the wounded and a defaming 
of the dead. 

334 



"KEEPING FAITH'* 335 

The army and people of the allied countries 
have already paid too much not to have the goods 
delivered. 

Do you think, for example, that we Australian 
boys are going back to our country without 
having gained that for which we came these 
twelve thousand miles and have fought so long, 
and lost so much ? 

Do you think that I am going back to Australia 
well and sound to face the mothers of my scouts, 
and when they come and ask me how their boys 
died, I will have to say: ''Well ! Here I am, well 
and strong, still able to put up a fight, and your 
son lies over there, his bones rotting on a foreign 
soil, and all in vain. The blood of him who to 
you was more precious than any prince or king 
that ever Hved has been poured out like water 
and uselessly"? 

Listen ! Here is something of what Australia 
has paid. There has never been a day for three 
years that hundreds of Australian wives have 
not been made widows. There has not been a 
single week that there has not been more than a 
full page of casualties in our daily papers. Every 
woman in Australia if she has not seen there the 
name of her near kin has seen the name of some 
one that she knows. I know a father and five 
sons that have all been killed. Within fifty miles 
of one town that I know there is not a man under 
fifty years of age. There are ranches and farms 



336 "OVER THERE 



>> 



that will go back to the primeval wilderness, the 
fences will rot and fall down, and the rabbits and 
kangaroos will overrun them again, because the 
men who were developing them are gone and 
there are none to take their places. Never was 
there a country so starved for men, and sixty- 
thousand are gone forever or maimed for life. 
Tell me, where are we going to replace these 
men? No country in the world could so ill af- 
ford to lose its young men, the future fathers of 
the race, for we have still our pioneering to do, 
a continent larger than the United States, with 
about the population of New York. 

Outside our Australian cities there are some 
large cemeteries, as we mostly have only one for 
each city, but the largest of our cemeteries does 
not lie on Australian soil. There are more Aus- 
tralian dead buried in Egypt than in any ceme- 
tery in our own country. On Gallipoli, in enemy 
hands, are the graves of thousands of our sacred 
dead. There are more of our imburied dead 
whitening in No Man's Land in France than have 
ever been laid to rest by reverent hands in a 
God's acre at home. Think of all that we have 
paid in blood and tears and heartache. But, 
perhaps, m.ore than this has been paid in pain and 
sweat. Many have been in those trenches more 
than three years. Consider their sufferings ! 
The unnatural life, like rats in a hole, the nerve- 
strain, the insufficient food, the scanty clothing. 



"KEEPING FAITH" 337 

What we have paid, Canada has paid, South 
Africa has paid, but Britain and France, how much 
more ! And Belgium, and Serbia, and Poland, 
and Rumania, and Italy. What a price to pay 
for an insecure peace, an enemy still with power to 
harm. 

We might erect to our fallen dead the most 
magnificent monument that this world has ever 
seen, we might built it in marble, and stud it 
with gems, and have the greatest poets and 
artists decorate it, but it would be a mockery 
and a sham. 

The only monument that we dare erect to our 
fallen dead, the only monument that would not 
be a dishonor to them and a shame and eter- 
nal disgrace to us is THE MONUMENT OF 
VICTORY. 

And the army will never quit until we have sure 
victory, for we dare not break faith with our 
dead. 

These lines of a Canadian soldier. Colonel 
McCrae, who has made the last sacrifice are an 
epitome of the army's spirit: 

"In Flanders' fields the poppies grow 
Between the crosses, row on row, 
That mark our place, 
While in the sky the larks, 
Still bravely singing, 
Fly unheard amid the guns. 
We are the Dead — 
Short days ago we lived, felt dawn, saw sunsets' glow, 



338 **OVER THERE" 

Loved and were loved — and now we lie 
In Flanders' fields 

Take up our quarrel with the foe. 
To you from failing hands we throw 
The torch — be yours to bear it high — 
If ye break faith with us who die, 
We shall not sleep though poppies grow 
In Flanders' fields." 



BUT A SHORT TIME TO LIVE 

By Leslie Coulson, killed in action 

Our little hour— how swift it flies 
When poppies flare and lilies smile; 

How soon the fleeting minute dies, 
Leaving us but a little while 

To dream our dream, to sing our song 
To pick the fruit, to pluck the flower, 

The Gods — they do not give us long- 
One little hour. 

Our little hour— how short it is 

When Love with dew-eyed loveliness 
Raises her Hps for ours to kiss 

And dies within our first caress. 
Youth flickers out like windblown flame, 

Sweets of to-day to-morrow sour, 
For Time and Death, relentless, claim 

One little hour. 

Our little hour,— how short a time 

To wage our wars, to fan our fates, 
To take our fill of armored crime, 

To troop our banner, storm the gates. 
Blood on the sword, our eyes blood-red. 

Blind in our puny reign of power, 
Do we forget how soon is sped 

One little hour ? 

Our Uttle hour — how soon it dies; 

How short a time to tell our beads. 
To chant our feeble Litanies, 

To think sweet thoughts, to do good deeds. 
The altar lights grow pale and dim, 

The bells hang silent in the tower, 
So passes with the dying hymn. 

Our little hour. 



339 



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